Vintage 1992 Battle of the Sexes Silk Cachet Cover 🎾 | Navratilova vs Connors

Navratilova vs Connors? 🎾 Vintage 1992 Battle of the Sexes Silk Cachet Cover

Size: 6 1/2" x 3 3/4"

🎾 Jimmy Connors against Martina Navratilova, Las Vegas, 1992, and this cover was cancelled in Las Vegas the very day they played. It's a silk cachet event cover, the kind made in small runs for collectors, and I haven't found another one of these for sale anywhere.

🔍 What's On It

Across the top, BATTLE OF THE SEXES, NAVRATILOVA - CONNORS. The picture is two black-and-white photos side by side, Navratilova hitting a forehand and Connors his two-handed backhand, printed on silk and set in a shiny silver-blue foil frame. Down in the corner the paragraph reads THE TENNIS BATTLE OF THE SEXES WAS FOUGHT IN LAS VEGAS IN A CLOSE MATCH BETWEEN MARTINA NAVRATILOVA AND JIMMY CONNORS. THE MATCH WAS WON BY JIMMY CONNORS. The stamp is the 29-cent Flag over White House, tied on with a LAS VEGAS, NV, SEP 25 1992 postmark. It's unaddressed and the back is blank.

That little Z in a shield beside the frame is the mark of Historic Limited Editions, John Zaso's company out of Williston Park on Long Island. They made silk-cachet covers for big events from the 1970s into the 1990s, usually a few hundred of each, and had them postmarked in the city where the event happened.

🏟️ The Match

It was billed as the "Battle of Champions," but everybody called it the second Battle of the Sexes. Friday, September 25, 1992, outdoors at Caesars Palace, on pay-per-view. Connors was 40, Navratilova 35, and they evened it up: Connors got only one serve per point, and Navratilova could hit into half of the doubles alleys. A sellout crowd of 13,832 showed up, and Connors went off as a 6-1 favorite.

He won 7-5, 6-2. Navratilova double-faulted away a set point in the first set and made eight double faults all told. "I was more nervous today than any match I've ever been in," she said afterward. Connors had warned everybody beforehand: "You consider it fun. I consider it my job playing against Martina." The winner took home $500,000.

And the best part came out more than twenty years later. In his 2013 memoir, Connors admitted he'd bet a million dollars on himself to win in straight sets and lose no more than eight games. 7-5, 6-2 is seven games. He won that bet too.

The first Battle of the Sexes was Billie Jean King over Bobby Riggs in Houston on September 20, 1973. This one came nineteen years and five days later.

📬 The Stamp

That 29-cent coil stamp came out on April 23, 1992, printed by the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, for the 200th anniversary of the laying of the White House cornerstone in 1792. That's why it says The White House 1792 1992.

📏 Details

• Navratilova vs Connors event cover with a silk cachet
• Historic Limited Editions (Z shield), silver-blue foil frame
• Flag over White House stamp with the Las Vegas match-day cancel
• Unaddressed, blank back
• You'll get one cover like the ones shown

🖼️ Frame it for a tennis fan, a Las Vegas collection or a sports den. It's a great gift for anybody who remembers that night or who loves the King-Riggs story.