Olympics Medals Sell for Thousands More than Anticipated at Auction

(ATR)Olympic medals and other memorabilia bring unusually high prices in Boston auction.

Most of the 73 items from the collection of Raleigh DeGeer Amyx sold for substantially higher than market value, including 13 of the 14 winners’ medals. The auction Thursday also featured about 350 lots of "Americana," attracting collectors from a wide variety of fields, and brought in a total of $1.5 million.

A 1976 Innsbruck gold medal for biathlon relay won by Nikolai Kruglov of the Soviet Union went for $28,750, which includes the hefty 25 percent buyer’s premium to RR Auction. The estimate was $7,000-$8,000.

A 1980 bronze medal won by Sweden’s Bo Berglund brought $16,250, more than double its estimate of $7,000-$8,000.

The 1972 Munich bronze won by shooter Lajos Papp of Hungary brought $12,500. It had been estimated at $4,000-$6,000, which was in line with previous sales of bronze medals.

However, a 1936 bronze medal from Garmisch-Partenkirchen went for $22,500. The estimate, not including the buyer’s premium, was $18,000-$20,000.

"I think the buyers are non-Olympic collectors," Jim Greensfelder, a member of the IOC Collectors Commission and expert on medals, tells Around the Rings. "That’s the reason why the bronze Garmisch went low and the others were way out of sight. The Garmisch bronze in my opinion is worth $35,000 and the rest are worth half or two-thirds of what they paid for them."

A 1900 Paris silvered-bronze plaquette, a rectangular winner’s medal for shooting, went for $2,750. A similar plaquette, which had lingered on eBay for weeks, sold for $550 the day before.

A 1900 plaquette for "Exercices Physiques Et Sports," considered to be worth $1,500-$2,000, brought $4,375.

"That’s outlandish," Greensfelder says.

A 1908 London silver medal for rackets, in its original box, fetched $11,250, while a gold medal (gold-plated silver) from 1912 Stockholm brought $11,875.

Silver and bronze 1924 Paris medals won by R. Earl Johnson, a U.S. distance runner, fetched $11,250 apiece.

A 1928 St. Moritz bronze, perhaps the most common Winter Olympic bronze medal, also brought $11,250. The same medal has a minimum of $8,500 in the latest mail bid auction by Ingrid O’Neil, which closes on Oct. 4. With O’Neil’s 15 percent buyer’s premium, it would cost $9,775.

A common silver bracelet from the 1932 Los Angeles Olympics that usually goes for about $100 sold for $1,375, thanks to "Babe D, 2 Golds +" engraved inside although there is no proof it belonged to Babe Didriksen, the great U.S. athlete.

A 1928 Amsterdam competitor’s badge, which one expert has said, "you can’t give away," went for $468.

A gold national medal presented to Hubert Van Innis of Belgium, who competed in the 1920 Olympics, was estimated for $300-$500 and, after a bidding war, went for $3,000.

Twelve items, including a 1912 letter opener, did not receive any bids.

The most expensive object in the Americana collection was a gold Rolex watch presented to Dwight D. Eisenhower. The highest bid was $475,000, but Amyx declined to sell it, citing a hidden reserve. He believes it is worth closer to $1 million.

Letters from John F. Kennedy to the family of a lost PT-109 crewmate brought $200,000 while a signed photo of Albert Einstein sticking out his tongue sold for $125,000.

Homepage photo: Getty Images

Written by Karen Rosen.

20 Years at #1: