A few months ago, we passed along the news that Mark Wells decided to make the sad decision to sell his gold medal from the unforgettable* 1980 U.S. Olympic Hockey team run (aka “The Miracle on Ice”).
At the time, estimates indicated that the gold medal would fetch something along the lines of a $125K bid because of the moment’s historic importance and the extreme rarity of such openly endorsed gold medals. (Plus it’s made of gold ... that’s what I like to call the Shiny Object Bonus.)
Well, Puck Daddy’s Sean Leahy points out that the auction went for much more than that, fetching an impressive - though far from unthinkable - $310,700 from an unnamed bidder at Heritage Auctions.
Wells went out of his way to prove that the medal was his, including writing an emotional (and somewhat heartbreaking) letter that pointed out the fact that he slept with the medal until the day he was forced to give it up. Ouch.
Who knows what will be done with the gold medal, but hopefully Wells might see it again someday.
* - I say this was unforgettable mainly from stories I’ve been told, since it happened more than four years before I was born.
(Gold medal image via Heritage Auctions.)
