The Big Book of Sports

The Big Book of Sports
LTA Robinson Ltd published a series of boys' annuals from 1954 to 1959 (6 editions only), with each annual reviewing the year through the lens of 20 sports. Each annual comprises a large diversity of black and white photographs, as well as colour pictures/illustrations; it covers the sporting year in a range of sports, as follows: Athletics, Boxing, Cricket, Cycling, Golf, Ice Hockey Motor Cycling, Motor Racing, Racing, Rowing, Rugby League, Rugby Union, Show Jumping, Soccer, Speedway, Sporting Spotlight, Swimming, Table Tennis, Tennis,

1950 Football and Sports Annuals
Soccer annuals for the mass market were first published just after the war, with The Boys Book of Soccer being the first, published by Evans Brothers in 1945 and printed on war economy standard paper. Other popular annuals that followed were The FA Book for Boys 1947, Sampson Low Marston Series 1949, The Big Book of Football Champions 1950, Charles Buchan’s Soccer Gift Book 1953, and The Topical Times Football Book 1959. In the mid-1960s, publishing houses launched Players Annuals, Billy Wright, Denis Law, and many more.
We hope to assist the hundreds of collectors of early annuals by supplying missing editions or helping you upgrade your collection. We have several editions, all in excellent condition.

The Photographic Process
Football books and magazines published from the late 1940s to the early 1960s used a unique photographic process: the photograph was taken on a large-format camera, and the negative (the plate) created an extremely high-quality finished print. The print was then hand-coloured or tinted, giving it an innovative effect. Often, publishers added features to the background, sometimes even including the ball. The best-known publisher to use this process was L.T.A. Robinson, who published The Big Book of Football Champions and The Big Book of Sports. Charles Buchan also used the same agency, Topical Colour Process Syndicate Ltd (London), in the Football Monthly Magazine and the Soccer Gift Book. We have in stock all original pages and many more; a good number are signed.