My Story

MY STORY

From collecting memorabilia to Hall of Frame

I've collected sporting memorabilia since I was young. Like a lot of collectors, it started with picking up things connected to the players, teams and moments I loved.

Then lockdown happened.

With rather too much time on my hands, the collection started getting bigger. I bought more memorabilia, started looking at different ways of displaying it and eventually decided to try framing a few pieces myself.

And, unexpectedly, I loved the framing almost as much as the collecting.

I didn't have a workshop full of expensive automated machinery. I learnt with relatively straightforward framing equipment, plenty of trial and error, and a willingness to try things that perhaps weren't normally done.

Before long I was framing pieces for friends, usually at cost price, simply because I enjoyed doing it.

THEN I STARTED MESSING ABOUT...

This was probably where Hall of Frame really started.

I wasn't particularly interested in making the same frame over and over again.

I'd see an existing framed piece and think:

“That could be better.”

So I'd take it apart.

I'd change the layout, add something, remove something, introduce lighting, frame unusual objects and generally push what I could do a little further each time.

Some ideas worked brilliantly.

Some probably should have stayed in my head.

That hasn't really changed.

As more people started asking me to frame things for them, and more memorabilia started changing hands, what had been a hobby gradually became something more serious.

Eventually there was enough interest to properly launch Hall of Frame.

MEMORABILIA FOR REAL FANS

There's another reason Hall of Frame developed the way it did.

As a collector myself, I'd seen how expensive the memorabilia world could become.

Of course, genuinely rare pieces will always command serious money. But I didn't think owning a signed shirt, photograph or piece of sporting history should automatically mean spending a fortune.

I wanted Hall of Frame to be somewhere normal fans could buy something special.

That could be a child's first signed shirt.

A birthday present.

Something for Dad.

A photograph of the player you grew up watching.

Or the ridiculous centrepiece you've always wanted for your games room.

Not everything has to cost thousands of pounds.

By carefully sourcing memorabilia, keeping our overheads sensible and doing our framing ourselves, we can offer great-looking pieces without unnecessarily adding layers of cost.

We're not trying to be the cheapest memorabilia company on the internet.

We're trying to make genuine memorabilia accessible to more people.

FRAMED BY US

The framing side that started during lockdown is still a huge part of Hall of Frame today.

We frame in-house.

And I'm still experimenting.

We use good materials and proper framing equipment, but I also firmly believe that you don't need a workshop containing tens of thousands of pounds of machinery to produce something you're proud to hang on a wall.

You need the right tools, patience, attention to detail and occasionally the confidence to think:

“I wonder what happens if I try this...”

That philosophy has led us from conventional photographs and shirts to boots, balls, cricket bats, illuminated frames and increasingly unusual bespoke displays.

And we're only getting started.