The second, and oldest existing, FA Cup is to be sold at auction, it was announced yesterday.

The trophy will be the highlight of Christie's sale of football memorabilia on May 19 and is expected to fetch between £200,000 and £300,000.

The auction house said it was arguably the most important item of football history to be offered for sale.

The cup was presented to winning teams between 1896 and 1910 - and was held aloft in victory as Manchester United, Tottenham Hotspur, Newcastle United, Everton, Nottingham Forest and Manchester City won the competition for the first time.

It replaced the original trophy, which was stolen from a shop window in Birmingham and never recovered.

David Convery, head of the sporting memorabilia department at Christie's, said: "This is the oldest existing trophy of the oldest football tournament in the world."

The first competition took place in 1872, and was won by Wanderers, a team formed by university and ex-public school players, in front of a crowd of 2,000 people. Today, the FA Cup is the biggest domestic cup competition in the world and the Cup Final attracts a global audience of up to 600 million viewers in 70 countries.

In 1895, Aston Villa won the competition for the second time, beating West Bromwich Albion 1-0.

That November, during an FA committee meeting, the club had to report that the cup had been stolen from the shop window of William Shillcock, a football and boot manufacturer in Birmingham, which had been proudly displaying the trophy.

Although a £10 reward was offered to anyone who could recover the cup, it was never seen again.

Instead, Aston Villa FC was fined £25, which covered the cost of a trophy "as nearly as possible like the old cup".

This replacement, which was presented to Lord Kinnaird in 1911 to commemorate his 21st anniversary as president of the Football Association, will be offered at Christie's in South Kensington, London, in May. The cup is being sold Lord Kinnaird's family.

The third trophy, introduced from the 1910-11 competition, was in use until the Cup Final of 1990-91. It remains at FA headquarters in London's Soho Square.

The fourth and current trophy, an exact replica of the third, has been in service since the 1991-92 Final.