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A silver medal in shooting from the 1900 Paris Olympics recently sold for just $ 1,283.
Then there was a bronze medal from the 1956 Winter Games in Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy, which grossed $ 3,750.
But it was a silver medal for first place at the first modern Olympic Games in Athens in 1896 – there were no gold medals back then – that was six digits on the eve of this year’s Games. It sold for $ 180,111, according to RR Auction, the Boston-based auction house that handled all three sales.
While their sentimental worth may be priceless to the athletes who wear them around their necks, Olympic medals find their way into pawn shops and podium auction pads, where collectors pick them up like rare coins, comics, and other sports artefacts like baseball cards.
“It’s a niche collector’s item,” said Bobby Livingston, executive vice president of RR Auction, which brokered the sale of the three medals and 18 more on July 22nd, on Sunday. “Those that have come onto the market in recent years are not in abundance.”
You don’t have to be Caeleb Dressel, the American swimmer who won five gold medals in Tokyo, to collect medals.
Dozens of former Olympians have sold their medals over the years. Some cited financial difficulties while others said they were motivated to raise money for charity.
Bill Russell, the legend of the Boston Celtics, will put his gold medal on the auction block this fall from the 1956 Olympics when he served as captain of the US basketball team.
“I’ve decided to sell most of my collection,” Mr. Russell told a warm-up jacket in a video on the Hunt Auctions website, the Exton, Pennsylvania auction house that will be selling his medal and some of his NBA championship rings and other memorabilia.
Mr. Russell says a portion of the proceeds will go to MENTOR, a charity he co-founded that promotes opportunities for caring for young people. A donation will also be made to a social justice initiative launched by the Celtics.
While the names of the Olympians are not engraved on medals, the names do matter, as do the circumstances associated with athletic performance, auction experts said.
A gold medal won by an unidentified member of the 1984 U.S. basketball team that included Patrick Ewing and Chris Mullin sold for $ 83,188 on July 22. RR auction said.
It was a handsome sum, but only a fraction of the nearly $ 1.5 million a collector paid in 2019 for one of the four gold medals Jesse Owens won at the 1936 Summer Games in Berlin. The sale price set a record for a piece of Olympic memorabilia, according to SCP Auctions, the Laguna Niguel, California auction house that handled the sale.
Owens, the black American track and field athlete, gave a dominant performance at these games while Hitler watched.
In addition to the origin and ownership history of collectibles such as medals, the so-called provenance, their condition plays an important role in the price, according to auction experts. Do you have your original tape? Did they come with a suitcase?
Not all Olympic medals are engraved with the name of the sport for which they were awarded, which auctioneers say can decrease their value if it is unclear.
In Tokyo, the gold medals won by the athletes mostly contain more silver than real gold, which according to the International Olympic Committee makes up about 6 grams of the total weight of 556 grams.
That equates to about $ 800 in gold and silver in those medals, Philip Newman, founding partner and managing director of Metals Focus, a London-based research firm, said on Sunday.
“If you win, the value is probably irrelevant,” said Mr. Newman. “I would be surprised if someone thought they were pure gold.”
The silver medals awarded at the Tokyo Games are made of pure silver and weigh 550 grams, which is about $ 450, according to Newman, who said bronze medals were worth significantly less. They contain gunmetal, which consists of 95 percent copper and 5 percent zinc.
Each medal comes in a wooden case and bears the five Olympic rings, the official name of the games and Nike, the Greek goddess of victory, on it, a requirement of the IOC
Some collectors like to settle for bronze, said Mr. Livingston.
“They’re still Olympic medals,” he said. “Third place is still damn good. As a collector you can start with bronze if you don’t have a lot of money. “
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