11:47 AM ET
Dan HajduckyESPN
- Hajducky is simply a reporter/researcher for ESPN. He has an MFA successful originative penning from Fairfield University and played connected the men's shot teams astatine Fordham and Southern Connecticut State universities.
On Saturday night, Carl Ludwig Hermann "Luz" Long's men's agelong leap metallic medal from the 1936 Berlin Olympics sold for $488,435 with SCP Auctions -- making the German's the astir invaluable metallic medal ever sold astatine nationalist auction. Long was killed successful 1943 portion serving successful the German army.
Long and American Jesse Owens' friendship, forged astatine the Berlin Olympics, is 1 of sport's astir enduring images. As Jeremy Schaap precocious wrote, the Third Reich turned the 1936 Olympics into "a pageant of German might." After Owens acceptable an Olympic men's agelong leap record, Long embraced Owens earlier walking arm-in-arm successful beforehand of a assemblage of 110,000 -- including Adolf Hitler.
"It took a batch of courageousness for him to befriend maine successful beforehand of Hitler," Owens said afterward. "You tin melt down each the medals and cups I person and they wouldn't beryllium a plating connected the 24-karat relationship that I felt for Luz Long astatine that moment."
The astir costly Olympic medal ever sold, unsurprisingly, is 1 of 4 Jesse Owens golds from the aforesaid Olympics. In 2013, an Owens golden sold for $1,466,574, besides via SCP Auctions -- a grounds for a golden medal and a then-record for portion of Olympic memorabilia. (The grounds for an point of Olympic memorabilia present belongs to the archetypal Olympic Manifesto, sold by Sotheby's successful precocious 2019 for $8.8 million.)
Per David Kohler, president and CEO of SCP Auctions, the erstwhile record-high merchantability for a metallic medal was "under $100,000."
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