Hard Tennis Balls



There are no more hard tennis balls to be acquired at the Christie's auction. Christie's officially opened for business in on December 5, 1766. But after nearly 250 years of appraising and auctioning fine art, they were finally closing their doors. Competition from Sotheby's had been fierce, and the economic downturn had depressed the selling price of art. The tennis balls were traditionally red, but white ones had eventually taken over the cricket professional matches. Now, with Christie's closed, the red ones had shot up in value many times over.



Made with a solid cork center that was wound with string and covered by leather, the cricket balls were now in high demand, kind of like the old coke bottles after Coke went out of business. Spectators were in love with the little red ball and paid top dollar for them. It was probably the scarcity of the red dye used to color them that caused them to be so rare. The snails from which the red dye was extracted had been put on the endangered species list. With a molecular formula dye that was all but impossible to duplicate synthetically, people had tried painting the balls. But as soon as the ball was put into play, a few strikes by the batsman would knock the paint off.

The team that bowls the ball to the batsman can only watch carefully as the batsman swings the wicket and tries to hit the ball. Eyes of spectators watch the game, keeping their interest on the bowler and the batsman who tries to score runs. When overs are completed, teams switch from fielding and batting, watching the time in limited overs. But balls were so badly damaged from play that none ever lasted an entire game. When the dye was gone, so were the red balls. Now, the balls had become a collector's delight, becoming the center piece in many a glass display.

Even museums were having a difficult time to find the red balls. Some museums had tried to use fake balls, but umpires from real cricket games could spot the fakes a mile away. The public become so outraged that they boycotted the museums. Some of them had apologized to the public in time to save their business, but others waited until it was too late, and they went out of business, as a result.