Description
Since 1978, Augusta National Golf Club has written beautifully photographed, gold embossed, green leatherbound annual editions of the most recent Masters Tournament. The series began with coverage in one large edition titled, the "Masters - The First Forty One Years". Since then, Augusta National has produced limited edition annual reviews of the most previous Masters Tournament, writing about each day of the tournament week and illustrating with historical glossy photos.
For most of the period since the first publication in 1978, the annuals were only able to be ordered by Masters patrons by submitting a pre-order card at the Tournament. As time went on, any previous issues that were not sold out were listed as available for purchase along with pre-ordering the upcoming edition. Thirty-four years after the first editions, only the most recent years are still available. The earlier editions have been sold-out for over 20 years. The value of out-of-print editions are impossible to estimate. Serious Masters patrons, not professional collectors, were buying the annuals out of love of the greatest tournament (and perhaps the greatest sporting event) in the world creating scarcity of annual editions. As a result, other than random issues- most of the annuals are part of personal collections and not available for sale at any price.
Recently Augusta National Golf Club began offering pre-order (as well as issues not sold-out) on the masters.org website. For an institution known for being proprietary for the benefit of the tournament's patrons, this was a bit of a curious move. After-all, you can't even order a Masters shirt or hat without attending the tournament. Currently on the website, the only available issues are 2000, 2006, 2007, 2009 and 2011.
A side-effect of offering the annuals online is the global visibility of the annuals and serves notice to fans and collectors alike that the series even exists. The result is an inevitable increase in demand for previous, sold-out issues; thus increasing value. A complete set woud be quite rare and nearly priceless.
As long-time Masters patrons, we have been collecting the annuals since their inception. Due to relocating to Europe, it will be impracticle to take the annuals abroad. Instead, it is my wish to offer my set to another Masters fan who will covet the annuals as we have instead of me breaking apart the set and selling them individually; truth is the set is worth more broken apart and sold individually until its complete- the earlier editions would be worth a fortune since they're so hard to find. A great investment either way.
In this offering, the set includes the following issues:
~Masters First Forty One Years
~Masters Nineteen Hundred and Seventy Eight (1978)
~(Following spelled out...) Masters 1979
~1980
~1981
~1982
~1983
~1984
~1985
~1986
~1987
~1988
~1989
~1990
~1991
~1992
~1994
~1995
~1996
~1997
~1998
~2001
~2002
~2003
~2004
~2005
These 26 editions will give any Masters afficianado the major chunk of the entire collection. The availabe issues on the Masters website (2000, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011) will fill in the majority of the missing issues. For the last few, personally I would create an eBay alert for "Masters Annual" to be immediately notified via email of issues becoming available. A complete set would be simply priceless!
I've been fortunate to pick up a lot of nice pieces over the years (and continue to); between more frequent travel and moving- its time to downsize my overgrown collection. Hate to give it up but I simply can't take it with me.
RETURN POLICY: I've done my best to describe items as accurately as possible. If by chance I missed something, please understand it wasn't intentional. In the rare event this may occur, please let me know.
Please contact me before leaving feedback. I am more than happy to accept a return if the tie arrives - and is for some reason not "as described". I would prefer a return and refund than have a buyer purchase an item they're dissapointed in.
Shipping: Buyer pays fixed $49.99 for shipping, handling and insurance in US. Please contact me for International shipping costs which may vary based on destination.
Shipping can be combined with other items. Take a look at my other items: View My Other Items For Sale
PAYMENT: PayPal.
Thank you for stopping by and please let me know if you have any questions.
