A PRECIOUS TROPHY.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LV, Issue 244, 12 September 1935, Page 8

A PRECIOUS TROPHY.

SHOW GOLD CUP. How the soaring price of gold has made a trophy so valuable that, instead of gracing the dining room or drawing room oi the winner each year, it remains locked from view in a vault of a bank, was related at the annual meeting of the Franklin Agricultural and Pastoral Society'. As its memorial to the late Rt. Hon. XV. F. Massey, who represented Franklin in Parliament for nearly 30 years, the society had a magnificent gold cup made with the late Prime Minister’s profile in relief on the howl. It is presented to the winner of the champion hunter event .at its annual show each year to hold until the next show. The winner is required to insure it beiore taking it from the showground. The secretary explained at the meeting that the cup cost £lO5, hut was now valued at £2OO. Full insurance had accordingly risen from £3 10s to £7. Winners in late years had been content to leave the cup with the society. taking only the £2O prize money and the miniature of the cup that became their own property. Recently, when a winner wished to have a photograph taken of his horse with all the trophies it had won, arrangements were made for the cup to he sent from the bank in which it is kept to a bank in the nearest town, to be handed to the winner and returned to the bank before it closed for the day. The winner was required to give 'a "written undertaking to be responsible for it during the time it was out of the bank s hands. In this way the insurance fee was saved.