Vintage 1994 Martina Navratilova Retires ✉️ Tennis Embossed Stamped Envelope!

When Did Martina Navratilova Retire? 🎾 "Martina Navratilova Retires" Silk Cachet Cover, New York, November 15, 1994

Size: 6 1/2" x 3 3/4" ~ Unaddressed.

The end of an era! This is a vintage 1994 commemorative cover for Martina Navratilova's retirement, never mailed. On the left, inside a gold embossed border, a painted portrait of Martina reproduced on silk-like cloth, her face in warm orange tones with a little figure of her lunging for a low shot below, captioned MARTINA NAVRATILOVA and RETIRES. At the upper right, a 29¢ White House stamp is tied by a round NEW YORK, NY NOV 15 1994 10199 postmark, and a small gold embossed Z shield sits beside the printed tribute.

🔍 What's Printed on It

• MARTINA NAVRATILOVA / RETIRES (on the silk portrait)
• "MARTINA NAVRATILOVA, ONE OF THE MOST TALENTED WOMEN'S TENNIS PLAYERS EVER, RETIRED. MARTINA WON 167 MAJOR TENNIS TITLES, 18 GRAND SLAM TITLES, INCLUDING WIMBLEDON NINE TIMES; AND WAS RANKED IN THE TOP FIVE FOR 20 CONSECUTIVE YEARS."
• The 29¢ White House 1792-1992 stamp, NEW YORK, NY NOV 15 1994 10199
• The gold embossed Z shield

That Z shield is the mark of Historic Limited Editions, John Zaso's company, famous for its silk cachets in the 1980s and 1990s. A staff artist painted an original portrait of the athlete or the event, the painting was reproduced on a specially made silk-like cloth, and the silk was applied to envelopes that had already been stamped and postmarked. They usually made just 200 to 600 of each.

🏆 Her Farewell Night at the Garden

Look at that postmark date. On the night of Tuesday, November 15, 1994, Martina Navratilova played her farewell singles match, in the first round of the Virginia Slims Championships at Madison Square Garden. Gabriela Sabatini beat her 6-4, 6-2 in front of 17,131 people. Then the lights went down and Martina walked out into a spotlight carrying flowers and a box of tissues. A red banner with a yellow tennis ball, "1994" and her name went up to the rafters, up there with the Knicks and the Rangers, and she was the first woman the Garden ever honored that way. The women's tour gave her a pearl-white Harley-Davidson, and she rode it around, grinning. She said that if she had to lose, she'd rather lose to Sabatini than anyone else, "because she's a good human being." That night closed out 22 years on the tour.

This remarkable envelope is a lasting tribute to her legendary career and her first "retirement." It didn't stick. She kept playing doubles, came back to singles in her forties, and at Wimbledon in 2004, at 47, she won a first-round singles match 6-0, 6-1. In September 2006 she finally bowed out for good by winning the US Open mixed doubles with Bob Bryan, her 41st major doubles title. She was 49, about a month short of 50, and Guinness World Records lists her as the oldest winner of a Grand Slam title.

In all she won 167 singles titles, the most anyone has won in the Open era, plus 177 doubles titles. Her majors came to 18 in singles, 31 in women's doubles and 10 in mixed, and nine of those singles titles were at Wimbledon. She did it as an American by choice. Born in Prague on October 18, 1956, she asked the United States for political asylum in 1975 at 18 and became a U.S. citizen in 1981.

📮 The White House Stamp

The 29-cent stamp shows the flag flying over the White House, with "The White House 1792 1992" printed in the corner. It came out in Washington on April 23, 1992, for the 200th anniversary of the day the White House cornerstone was laid, October 13, 1792. Bureau of Engraving and Printing artist V. Jack Ruther designed it, and it was printed in rolls of 100, 500 and 3,000 stamps.

🏡 Display

It's a perfect piece for a tennis fan, a Navratilova collector or anybody who loves the history of women's sports, and it looks great framed with the silk portrait and the postmark showing. Nobody is making these 1994 covers again. Once these last ones are gone, they'll be very difficult to acquire.