Collecting antiques has always been associated with scouting for original objects on offline auctions and thrift shops and connecting with other collectors - however, even this part of our lives is being changed by technology. This spring, the first-ever digitized collection of antique tennis rackets will be auctioned off through OpenSea.
Owned by IT entrepreneur and avid tennis player Slava Babienko, the collection of over 90 lots includes antique tennis rackets and accessories, from tennis balls to postage stamps, from the late 19th and early 20th centuries. And even though Babienko himself spent a decade scouting for unique objects in an 'old-school' way, he believes it is now time to embrace technological advancements and make the process of antique collecting more up-to-date.
"As someone with a tech and IT background, I recognize that the world of collecting is rapidly changing: NFT has already revolutionized how we interact with digital art, and I believe that it can do the same for any type of collectible. For this reason, I was inspired to create high-resolution NFTs for every single object in my tennis collection," shares Babienko.
There have already been reports of art galleries using blockchain to mint NFTs for ancient artifacts, from legendary weapons to ancient vases, attracting millennial customers to the world of antique collecting. However, a collection of historic tennis rackets as NFTs is the world's first.
Babienko has taken a high-tech approach to digitizing physical objects. Using $100,000 worth of professional 3D equipment to produce the highest-resolution virtual collectibles, Babienko and his team created tokens to showcase antique objects to the finest detail, preserving every crack, wear and tear one expects to see on a historical item.
"It's an entirely new approach to acquiring antique objects. Before, only the collector, their family, and close friends would see the objects. NFT technology, on the other hand, now allows us to reach wider audiences and make collecting rare objects more appealing to younger, tech-savvy collectors, all while creating a digital footprint of the historical object online. Aside from collecting, NFTs have educational value as another way to preserve the memory and image of unique objects from previous centuries," adds Babienko.
For those already seasoned in collecting - virtual and physical - the collection will be up for auction on the OpenSea platform during the Roland-Garros tournament between May 28 and June 11, 2023, with each lot including a physical object and a digitized NFT version.
