V 1 N. 2 Al Oerter's Medals on Antiques Roadshow What Are They Worth?

 The other night I was scrolling through a list of channels and noticed on Antiques Roadshow a description of what kind of 'antiques' would be displayed.   I saw that there would be Olympic the medals of Al Oerter whom you all know won the Discus at Melbourne, Rome, Tokyo, and Mexico City.  I immediately saved the show to view a few nights later, and sure enough there were Al's four medals on a felt board.  They were flanked by two ladies, one an evaluator and the other, one of Al's daughter who had brought them to the show.   A couple of interesting factoids.  Only the first three medals 56, 60, and 64 are originals.  The 68 medal according to his daughter was loaned out to a metal smith to make a mold of the medal to reproduce one for someone who had lost theirs.   The smith not realizing he had Al's original destroyed it.  So Al's fourth is also a reproduction.  The other three medals had become tarnished ( must not have been real gold) and the family had them regilded.   So nothing in original condition which makes things most valuable.  Still the evaluator put a price of $400,000 on the four medals.  I thought this might have been a little low, forgetting the reproduction and the condition of the other three.   I knew that one of Jesse Owens' medals had been sold recently and found that it had gone for $1,4 million.  According to the brain at google: 

 One of Jesse Owens' 1936 Berlin Olympics gold medals sold for $1,466,574 in 2013, according to NBC 5 Dallas-Fort Worth. This made it the most expensive piece of Olympic memorabilia ever sold at auction at the time. The medal was part of the estate of Elaine Plaines-Robinson, the wife of entertainer Bill "Bojangles" Robinson, to whom Owens had gifted it. 

So there you have it.  If you happen to find an Olympic medal at a garage sale this Spring, you 

may have to make a run to the ATM.   Here are a few more pictures I took off the program.  

leaves something to be desired as I photographed the TV screen.

family photo

daughter who had the medals, she's on Al's right shoulder above

The medals and estimated value

The discus had the four Olympic years and his distances penned on them

but thee was no indication he had actually used that discus in any of the Olympic Games.

The daughter mentioned that Al got into throwing while he was training as a high school  runner, 

which he didn't really like and a discus got out on  the track which he picked it up and threw  back to 

where the coach and thrower were standing and his throw back was so good they called him over to put 

him into that event.

Link

Antiques Roadshow Oerter interview

$400,000 for the medals of the most dominant Olympic Champion?

How many NBA players earn that in a single game.

It's a world gone mad, I tell you.   Mad.

Roy Masonk, Esq.