In 1960, at age seventeen, I traveled to Rome for the Summer Games of the XVII Olympiad. It was my first trip abroad, I was thoroughly naive and impressionable, and my brother and I spent two gloriously indulgent weeks immersed in what sports writers still describe as being perhaps the finest Olympics since the inception of the modern games in 1896.
The great performances are as clear to me today as they were thirty-six years ago. The Stadio Olimpico hosted superb athletes -- Herb Elliot, Rafer Johnson, Al Oerter, Wilma Rudolph. Abebe Bikila, a member of Emperor Haile Selassie’s personal guard, running barefoot at night and ending the race under the triumphal Arch of Constantine, won the first of his consecutive Olympic marathons. A boxer named Cassius Clay dominated the light-heavyweight division in the Palazzo dello Sport. The United States basketball squad considered today to be the best team ever assembled (including the overblown Dream Teams), won gold with Walter Bellamy, Jerry Lucas, Oscar Robertson and Jerry West. We watched gymnastics in the ruins of the Baths of Caracalla, while thunder and lightning provided overhead accompaniment.
I became a believer. However, fourteen years were to pass before that fateful London day in 1974 when my love for the Games meshed with my involvement in art and collecting. A friend at Spink’s, knowing of my incurable passion, placed in my palm a bronze participation medal struck for the 1936 Berlin Olympics. Designed by Otto Placzek, the obverse shows five athletes representing the regions of the Olympic world, while the reverse depicts the Berlin Olympic bell with the inscription, “I call the youth of the world.” I had no idea such wonderful medals were on the market, or that they even existed. The price: $12. I slipped the treasure into my breast pocket, though not before I had also purchased for $17 a beautiful deep blue enameled silver linesman’s badge worn at the 1908 London Games. Only two Olympic items, but the die was cast. From that day forward I was a hunter, and as I hunted I learned more about the Games and their associated art and artifacts.
My collection of participation medals grew, thanks to colleagues in London, and auction houses and dealers in the United States and Europe. These medals, also called “commemorative” medals, are the souvenirs given to everyone who is officially involved in the Games as an athlete, coach, official, or associate of the Organizing Committee. Most were struck in bronze and pewter, though some are in silver, and gold-plated bronze and silver. Over the years I added many to my cabinet, beginning with the 1896 Games in Athens and ending with the Rome Olympiad. Fine artists designed the medals, including N. Lytras (1896); J. Champlain (1990); E.B. McKennal (1908); McKennal/Lindberg (1912); P. Theunis (1920); R. Benard (1924); J.C. Wienecke (1928); J. Kilenyi (1932); McKennal/Pinches (1948); K. Rasanen (1952); A. Meszaros (1956) and E. Greco (1960). The Greek origins of the Games appear often in images of Zeus and Nike, and galloping quadriga.
The medals I acquired in those early years could be found for $20 to $50. Many are now selling for between $500 and $1,000. The copper medal made by Dieges & Clust, New York, for the 1904 St. Louis Games, is by far the rarest. It's value has now soared to $22,000 (O'Neil auction, August 26, 2000), though I remember hesitating in 1980 when I was asked $29 for the one I now own. As in all areas of collecting, condition is a factor in establishing value. It also helps if the medal is in its original case.
Baron Pierre de Coubertin, creator of the modern Olympics, considered gold inappropriate as a prize for amateurs, so silver medals were awarded to winners at the 1896 through 1904 Games, and the anniversary Games of 1906. The second place received bronze, and the third nothing. Gold medals were presented at the 1908 and 1912 Olympics, after which gold-plated silver was adopted.
The most prized item in any collector’s closet is a medal awarded to the victor. These do occasionally appear on the market -- though rarely. After all, most are handed down from one proud generation to the next. We all crave for one that belonged to a great hero like Jim Thorpe, Paavo Nurmi, Jesse Owens or Emil Zatopek. I do possess one gold medal, won by Q. F. Newell for National Round archery at the 1908 Games. In the July Atlanta auction, a gold medal from the 1912 Stockholm Games (rifle competition) sold for $3,750.
In addition to participation medals, Olympic Congress medals and other commemorative pieces, my collection rapidly expanded to include the silver and bronze badges worn by competitors, team managers, judges, referees and linesmen, many finely enameled and with attached ribbons. These are increasingly difficult to find, with early examples now realizing $2,000 and more.
One of my most interesting discoveries, from the 1936 Games, is a post-Olympics gold medal presented to the trainer/coach of the Polish women’s team. An accompanying document bearing the name of Adolf Hitler and the date April 20, 1937, was signed less than two-and-a-half years before German forces overran that country, sealing the fate of its people.
Official Olympic Committee Reports, issued after each of the Games, form an integral part of my collection, as do Olympic programs which are often found at book and ephemera shows. The exceedingly rare 1896 program is currently worth $5,000, though examples from later years can be purchased for as little as $10. I particularly enjoy those in which the results have been hand-written at the moment of the event. The feeling of immediacy is palpable. My favorite? That of August 9, 1936, Berlin Olympic Stadium, as Jesse Owens runs the first leg of the 4 x 100 meters relay, winning his fourth gold medal. This is of specific historical interest and indicative of why the 1936 Games continue to attract so much attention. Owens was not slated to run the relay, it being assumed that Marty Glickman would take that leg. On the morning of the heats, Glickman and Sam Stoller (also a probable runner) were replaced by Owens and Ralph Metcalfe. What made the situation ugly was that Glickman and Stoller were the only Jews on the U.S. track squad. Despite protestations of innocence by the team coach, it has long been held that the decision to change the quartet was a bow to the base feelings of Hitler and not founded on athletic considerations. It certainly caused great embarrassment to the United States.
One of the most serious areas of Olympic collecting is posters. These are offered with some regularity in specialized poster auctions, and invariably command strong prices, particularly if from the early period. Some are extremely rare, and many are brilliant statements of graphic art. They were printed in varying quantities. The Berlin poster designed by Frantz Wurbel ran to 243,000 copies, in nineteen languages, and was distributed in thirty-four countries. Conversely, only 10,000 copies of Jean Droit’s 1924 Paris poster were made. Regardless of the production size, most were damaged or thrown away over the ensuing years, guaranteeing their strong worldwide value today. The condition of a poster plays a major role in determining its desirability.
My prime interest is the Summer Games, though going to the 1980 Lake Placid Olympics, where for days I ploughed thigh-deep through snow fields, lead inevitably to the acquiring of Winter Games memorabilia. My creased ticket stub from a memorable night watching the United States/Soviet Union ice hockey game is now worth nearly $100, not that I will ever sell it.
Olympic pin collecting first came to this country at Lake Placid. It exploded in popularity, and the pin traders themselves became known as “pinheads”. The practice of collecting and trading erupted into a frenzy at the 1984 Los Angeles Games, where a parking lot next to the L.A Coliseum was turned into a pin swapping and buying center. Every day, as many as 20,000 people swarmed through the tents, fighting for the material. In 1988, in Calgary, Coca-Cola set up the first pin-trading center, bestowing corporate blessings on the habit. Coca-Cola representatives in Atlanta estimated that one million people came through their center during the 1996 Games, and more than two million pins changed hands.
In 1984, one licensee made pins. For the 1996 Games, five made them. The glut of pins, as many as fifty million, has diluted the collectibles market but made it easier for everyone to participate. Most sell for $5 to $10, and it is highly unlikely that any will appreciate in value. In 1995, the pin collecting magazine, “PINdemonium,” was launched. America Online has a message board, and the Internet is brimming with information about Olympic pins.
Collecting fever had resulted in some forging of pins and badges from the early Games. Genuine pins such as those from the Garmisch-Partenkirchen Winter Olympics of 1936 can sell for several hundred dollars. The ones seen with a swastika were probably made after World War II for souvenir hunters.
In his bid to make the 1984 Games not only a financial gold mine, but also single-handedly pay off the national debt, Peter Ueberroth arranged for the sale of everything he could lay his hands on. After selling the flags of all nations (Gabon, Libya and Paraguay were going for $50, while Cuba, France and The Netherlands commanded $75), the winners’ podiums were offered at $1,000 each. I was sorely tempted to buy one for the apartment - great for the television and plants. However, it would have covered one half of the living room, and was painted a vivid swimming pool blue. I declined. The only things Ueberroth did not sell was the water in the Olympic pool.
After those Games, I did buy three bottles of Coca-Cola that had been packaged expressly for the athletes of the Olympic village. Emblazoned with the unique logo, these now stand proudly and unopen in my Olympic cupboard, far from the reach of ignorant parched lips. The same dealer offered me an Olympic torch for $250, which I turned down. It was re-offered this summer in Atlanta for $3,500. Again, I demurred.
Memorabilia in all its gloriously monstrous diversity has been part of the Games for decades. Capitalism in Los Angeles simply pushed it over the edge, setting the scene for its overwhelming appearance in Atlanta. More and more dealers and collectors enter the field each year, and the mania for buying accelerates as each Olympiad approaches. Auctions of exclusively Olympic material are held, dealers and traders descend on the host city, and peak prices are realized.
I have succumbed to a variety of objects, including candlesticks, plates, ashtrays, commemorative bus tokens, automobile medallions, ties and scarves. Much of this dross has become alarmingly expensive. My 1984 pin for synchronized swimming, a bizarre activity only marginally more stimulating than watching paint dry, is the most perverse one in my collection; that is, apart from the plethora of commercially sponsored pins compulsively accumulated in Barcelona and Atlanta. These weighed down our sun-hats with increasing severity each day, the attachments inflicting forehead and crown stigmata that took months to heal.
Even with commercial madness, the Olympics continue to excite as no other occasion can. Physical endeavor at its finest, concentrated into two weeks of world-embracing competition and unity, is ecstasy. And yes, it does give me a chance to find a few more treasures for the shelves. As I write this, I am working on additions. In London there lies, in an Edwardian frame, a desiccated laurel wreath, a victor’s crown from 1896. I am about to buy an ancient Greek bronze strigil, used to scrape the oil and dirt from an athlete’s body after exercise. There will be further discoveries, and with de Coubertin’s Games firmly established, countless glorious moments to dream about.
