Cricket dominates the world of sporting memorabilia, with Australian football perhaps the only other sport to come close. Verdun Howell's retrospective 1959 Brownlow Medal was bought for $57,500 by his old club, St Kilda, last week. The first Brownlow Medal, won in 1924 by Edward Greeves, sold privately last year for more than $300,000.

The occasional Melbourne Cup has also attracted bids at this level but, in comparison, most other sports, like boxing, fail to generate much enthusiasm at auction.

Leski Auctions in Melbourne yesterday held an auction of sporting memorabilia, where a signed print of Lionel Rose was given a modest estimate of $100 to $120 while a boxing glove signed by six modern world champions, including Jeff Fenech, had an optimistic estimate of $600.

This seems a bit sad for a sport that was once a major part of Australian culture. Yet there is one Australian boxer who looms larger than life, and his name is Les Darcy. So what would a pair of his gloves be worth?

Boxing collector Jack Stitt (see My Collection) owns a pair but says they are not for sale at any price. At some hypothetical auction they would be in the Brownlow category if their provenance could be verified.

The story of how Jack came to have these in his possession is one that could only happen to a true collector.

He was at East Maitland, the birthplace of Les Darcy, helping to launch a book on Australia's boxing icon, for which he had supplied most of the visual material. An elderly lady approached him and said she had something he might be interested in. A short while later she returned and handed over a pair of ancient boxing gloves. She said they had been given to her mother by Les Darcy and kept in the family ever since. "I wanted to give them to a real Darcy man," she told him.

Stitt was stunned a ten-count probably. He gathered from the conversation that the lady's mother and Darcy had been, to put it politely, an item at some stage. She always had a strong sentimental attachment to Darcy's gloves, which he apparently used for training, not in a competitive bout.

The story is wonderful, even if an auction house would possibly need more solid evidence that these once graced Darcy's famous fists.

For the past 70 years Stitt has compiled a massive collection of boxing memorabilia, undoubtedly the best in Australia. Its value at auction is hard to estimate but the Les Darcy section on its own would attract huge interest, probably from museums.

And there's plenty more of value, usually with fascinating stories attached. A large, nearly life-size photograph of Darcy in a frame was picked up by Stitt from a warehouse just as it was about to be taken to the tip. It was given to him for free.

A full-colour poster advertising the 1945 cinema release of the Tommy Burns versus Vic Patrick Australian welterweight title fight was handed over by the management of the Capitol Theatre because, back then, no one thought of keeping such things. Jack was still at school at the time. Most of his collection was given to him because the boxers were friends and wanted him to have it. This includes the battered boots worn by Ron Richards, whom Stitt regards as the best Aboriginal boxer of all.

They sit in a glass case that is a shrine to his old mate.

Another treasure is one of the trophy belts won by Richards at the fabled Leichhardt Stadium. Along with Sydney Stadium, this was the home of pro boxing in Sydney for many decades, packed to capacity every Thursday night. He has countless posters and programs from that golden period when the likes of Sir Frank Packer had a stable of boxers. He even has the ring announcer's microphone.

Jack Stitt is one of a small number of private individuals who hold very significant collections like this. Their value on the commercial market would be considerable but in most cases the monetary value is not the main consideration. Hopefully they will end up in a museum where we can all enjoy them.

$1000

Many sportsmen of the time had tin souvenir badges produced in their honour. Very few of Les Darcy's are known to survive.

$2000

This impressive silver belt was won by Aboriginal champion Ron Richards in 1942. Stitt regards him as one of boxing's greats.

$3000

How much for an original ringside ticket to a Les Darcy fight? Jack Stitt can only guess at a value because no others are known to exist.

My Collection

"I'll be 80 next January," says Jack Stitt, Australia's foremost collector of boxing memorabilia. "I started collecting when I was 10." That was when his mother gave him a photo of Les Darcy to hang on his wall.

He has since accumulated a massive collection of Darcy memorabilia, including signed photos, original programmes and possibly the only surviving ticket to one of Darcy's fights.

The appeal of Darcy is easy to explain. The boxer was an early example of the "live fast, die young" philosophy. "He did so much when he was young, from the age of 16 to 20," says Stitt. "He was dead at 21."

Jack Stitt has also had an interesting life. As a young man he also tried boxing, appearing in a few preliminary bouts at the old Leichhardt Stadium until his mother found out and made him stop before he became "punchy".

Instead he concentrated on collecting.