George Nicoll

1880

George Nicoll was a Scottish cleekmaker who began forging iron heads in 1881, the firm continued under the family supervision until the 1980's.
The 'hand' cleek mark of Nicoll can be found in various forms and started in 1898 (but it was a full 24 years later that his son Robert sought to protect the mark with trade mark status), prior to this the irons were stamped 'G. Nicoll, Leven'. There are around a dozen different styles of the 'hand' cleek mark and knowing the different versions one is able to put a reasonable accurate date to Nicoll's clubs.
One of Nicoll's most famous and highly collectable club is his patent leather-faced cleek of 1892.
In the early 1900's George's son, Robert, joined the firm and managed to transform them into a large manufacturing business. By 1910 they were now giving their different lines of irons model names, the most common of those lines were the popular Zenith clubs. One of their lines was the 'Indicator' which is widely acknowledged as the first modern matched set of clubs. The complete set of irons were marked showing the yardage range for each club in the set and the sets was produced by carefully matching the wooden shafts to provide a continuous flow in feeling from club to club.

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