Golfing widows take heart. Those golf clubs, balls and golfing memorabilia could be worth a handsome sum one day if they aren't already.

Mr John Joinson, head of the golfing department at Phillips auction house in Chester, says that anything appertaining to golf increases values. For instance, a piece of Doulton pottery with golfers on it can multiply its value by four or five. Crombie golfers cartoon figures dated about 1890 on Doulton ware would make about £400 whereas a piece with stags in a woodland scene might only fetch £100.

Before 1850, golf balls were handmade from two strips of stitched cowhide filled with a hatful of shrunken boiled feathers. A good ball-maker was lucky to make three a day. A single ball cost half a crown before 1850 which was "extremely expensive".

The world record for a feathery ball is £17,500, fetched in 1995. It was signed in the 1830s or 1840s by Allan Robertson, a famous ball and club maker.

In 1850, Gutta Percha balls "gutty balls" first appeared. Today, these can fetch between £200 and £20,000 depending on age and condition.

The rubber core wound ball arrived in 1900. A very thin piece of elastic was repeatedly wound into a circular shape and given a plastic coating. Their mass manufacture first made golf "accessible to the working man", Mr Joinson says. Clubs too were handmade before about 1890 but with mass production, they became cheaper.

The world record for a rubber core wound ball was set in 1996 in New York at $31,000 (£22,000). It had numerous panels like a football. A "daft invention", Mr Joinson explains: "It slowed the ball rolling downhill because it wasn't completely circular."

Items which pre-date 1890 tend to fetch the highest prices. For instance, a ball marker made from metal and hard wood was used to put concentric lines on the ball to make the ball fly faster and further. But at the end of the last century they were thrown away as obsolete.

The only known surviving ball marker was discovered screwed to a workbench in a loft in Leicester only last year. Some 12 inches long and four inches wide and high, the ball was placed inside it while the handle was turned to give concentric lines in one direction. It was then placed at a right angle and again turned. That fetched $64,000 in New York last November.

Before 1850 golfers used handmade "trouble irons" to hack the ball out of long grass. "I've sold a trouble iron for £52,000 that dated from about 1780," says Mr Joinson.

Clubs from before 1880 by makers like Forgan, Philp, Park, Morris and others can make between £5,000 and £20,000. Each would fetch "a minimum of thousands of pounds, regardless of condition", he says, although condition will help.

Twentieth century clubs commanding higher values tend either to be patent clubs or clubs that were made illegal. For instance, a mallet-headed putter from the 1920s used to putt croquet-style was soon banned. "It was practically impossible to miss with them. Everyone said: `Christ, you'll miss nought'," says Mr Joinson. Nowadays it would fetch between £800 and £1,000.

Some people collect professionals' completed score cards. These can fetch up to £1,000.

Photographs of golf courses showing a true record of the course at the time can be worth "from hundreds to thousands".

Unwrapped old balls in the original box can fetch between £200 and £600 depending on rarity while a pen and ink chalk drawing of one John Carey a famous caddie in the 1890s sold for $9,000 last November in New York.

The next Phillips sale of golfing memorabilia takes place in Chester on July 14th.