The Gucci Golf Ball Money Clip: Leisure in Gold Tone

A money clip is one of the smallest accessories a person can carry: a folded strip of metal that holds notes flat in a pocket. Small as it is, it can say a good deal about how its owner liked to be seen. This Gucci money clip from the 1970s, in gold-tone metal with a raised golf ball at its centre and still in its green Gucci box, links the Florentine house with the leisure world of the golf course.

Gucci and the world of leisure

Gucci was founded in Florence in 1921 by Guccio Gucci, who had worked as a young man at the Savoy Hotel in London. Its early business was in luggage and leather goods for travellers, and its best-known motifs, the horsebit and the Web stripe, were drawn from riding. Christie's notes how these equestrian references became codes of the house in the decades after the war.

By the 1970s, Gucci had shops in Italy and the United States, and its range included many small accessories alongside bags and luggage. A money clip with a golf ball motif belongs to the same family of sporting references as the horsebit: it borrows the imagery of a pastime associated with leisure and social life.

The design

The clip is horseshoe-shaped, a classic form for a money clip, and made of gold-tone metal. At its centre is a raised golf ball, which makes its theme clear at a glance. It measures 8 by 4 centimetres and was made in Italy.

The original box adds to the object's interest. It is dark green, lined with velvet and marked with a gold crest and logo, and it shows how Gucci presented even its smallest pieces. Boxes of this kind are often lost, and their survival helps to confirm a piece's origin.

The object

The Archivary describes the clip as a Gucci gold-tone money clip of the 1970s with a raised golf ball design at the centre, in a classic horseshoe shape, presented in its original dark green velvet-lined Gucci box with gold crest and logo, made in Italy. It is recorded in very good condition.