This amazing sweater traces its lineage to the earliest years of perhaps the most famous basketball team on Earth or certainly it could have been thusly described in the decades before the NBA became quite the global behemoth that it is now. The team was organized in Chicago in 1926 as the all-black Savoy Big Five. Sports promoter Abe Saperstein acquired the team soon after and owned it until his death in 1966. In January 1927 the team debuted in Hinckley Ill. under the name New York Globetrotters. The name was changed in 1930 to Harlem Globetrotters to capitalize on the cultural notoriety of the legendary black neighborhood in Uptown Manhattan. The barnstorming team amassed an impressive record over the next decade and in 1939 participated in the first professional basketball championship losing to the Harlem Rens in the final game. The next year the Globetrotters won the tournament. It was about this time that they first experimented with adding comedy to their games. Inman Jackson was the first to assume the role of clown prince on the team. As the NBA became racially integrated in the 1950s the opportunities for competitive games on the barnstorming circuit dried up. As a result the team made comedic entertainment its central focus. The heavy-wool multi-colored knit sweater is extraordinary in its presentation truly a museum-worthy specimen that has to be seen to be appreciated which only seems fair since it came from a museum. It is in remarkable condition despite its advanced age of likely 80 years revealing considerable usage but no major damage or hint of alterations jostled only by a few tiny holes mostly around the waist or neck and some expected staining around the underarms. There is no tagging of any kind; the shirt appears quite large certainly for the era but even for more modern times The plush Harlem Globetrotters patch is in similarly spectacular condition. Truly a one-of-a-kind piece with remarkable historical import.

Includes a Letter of Provenance from The Newport Sports Museum.