Oldest FA Cup fetches record price
 |  An anonymous telephone bidder paid nearly half-a-million pounds for the cup |
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LONDON, England -- The oldest surviving FA Cup was sold at auction on Thursday for £478,400 ($879,400) - a world record price for an item of football memorabilia.
The cup, made in 1896 as a replacement for the stolen original, was purchased by an anonymous telephone bidder in the auction at Christie's.
The price comfortably beat the previous record set in 1997 when a copy of the Jules Rimet World Cup sold for £254,500 ($467,500).
David Convery, head of the sports memorabilia department at Christie's, was delighted with the outcome. "It was thrilling. Football sales started in 1989 and this is by and large the most impressive result.
"It illustrates the growing strength of the sporting memorabilia market and I was incredibly pleased to be able to offer for sale football's greatest prize."
The FA Cup sold on Thursday was one of only four produced for England's famous annual footballing competition, which began in 1871, and is the only one to come up for sale.
It was presented to winning teams between 1896 and 1909 - and was held aloft in victory as Manchester United, Tottenham Hotspur, Newcastle United, Everton, Nottingham Forest and Manchester City won the competition for the first time.
In 1909 the Football Association decided to replace the trophy when it discovered it did not own the copyright on it after the then holders of the cup, Manchester United, produced a replica.
The redundant cup was then presented to Lord Kinnaird to mark his presidency of the FA for more than two decades.
In the same Christie's auction, the 1966 World Cup medal won by England's Alan Ball was also sold to an anonymous bury for 164,800 pounds (US$302,688).
