By Lewis Wiltshire BBC Sport Online

By today's standards, it did not cost very much when it was first created.

But, three decades later, the trophy presented annually to the BBC's Sports Personality of the Year is now considered priceless.

That is because this silver-plated four-turret lens camera, which cost around �1,000 when it was created in the 1950s, has become part of British sporting folklore.

Along the way the trophy has found its way on to the mantelpieces of, among others, Jim Laker, Stirling Moss, Bobby Moore, Ian Botham and Lennox Lewis.

Chris White, senior sports studio manager at the BBC, has worked on 11 Sports Review of the Year programmes.

He told BBC Sport Online a little about the history of the trophy itself.

"It used to have one plinth on it but it's now got three, because over the years we just had to keep adding another plinth to put little shields on.

The trophy presented to this year's winner will be the original which was given to the first winner, athlete Chris Chataway, in 1954.

But, since 1981, there has been a replica.

That was the year Ian Botham won and, because the cricketer was in Australia for the winter, an identical trophy had to be on hand Down Under as the votes came in.

"So now we have two", said White.

Winners keep the original trophy for around eight or nine months, before the BBC collects it to prepare for the next show.

Perhaps surprisingly, the trophy has never been lost or come back damaged.

It is nevertheless given a polish and a clean and on the night is presented to that year's winner. But they do not take it with them immediately.

That can lead to problems, such as in 1999 when Muhammad Ali was given the Sports Personality of the Century prize.

The former heavyweight boxing champion was returning to America the following morning and wanted to take his trophy with him.

So a quick dash to the engravers as soon as they opened on Monday was necessary!

"It will be delivered to them, deliberately, just before Christmas", said White.

"It's one of these strange things where a lot of people actually want it to put on their Christmas table."

Senior sports studio manager White is always enjoys watching the reaction of the winner and points to the example of Steve Redgrave in 2000.

"Even though he'd won five gold medals he saw it as the pinnacle.

"He said he'd been coming to Sports Review of the Year for many years and now he'd won it. They are flabbergasted when they get it, which is a nice reaction after all these years of the programme."