It’s summer (or, at least it’s nominally summer in parts of Britain, despite the weather)!
And come the sun, means come the competitions.
Over the summer runs a marathon of sporting events, from the women’s football to the cricketing world cup.
With such glory ready for the taking, there are trophies aplenty to be engraved.
However, the summer awards season has kicked off on a rather unexpected note.
Upon winning the ladies’ French Open title at Roland Garros last week, Ashleigh Barty was quick to inspect her predecessors on the presentation trophy.
As an Australian, she reviewed back to see when was the last time a fellow Aussie lifted the cup… and was surprised at what she found.
Under 1976, our very own Sue Barker was duly credited as the winner, but was misappropriated to the nation down-under.
Back then, Sue was an up and coming tennis champ at the tender age of 20, and went on to notch appearances in both the Australian Open and Wimbledon the following year.
However, despite becoming a national treasure on our island state, her most notable achievement has been credited to a foreign power… something which most definitely should be corrected.
At Engravers Guild, we often say that the beauty of an engraved gift is that the engraving lasts forever.
As such, someone now has a very tough job of polishing out an impression that was designed to last for time immemorial.
Our engravers here certainly sympathise with the conundrum, as there are few ways back from salvaging a mistaken engraving.
But, with the pride of the nation at stake with a few engraved letters denoting the nationality, we’re sure that solutions are indeed possible.
From recasting erroneous old engravings, though, we wish all British athletes the very best of luck this sporting season, and hopefully there are more GBR initials soon to be engraved on more trophies in the coming weeks.