This Rare Gold Medal From the 1904 Olympics Sold for More Than $500,000

In the summer of 1904, the United States hosted its first-ever Olympic Games. Up to that point, the global competititon had been held in Europe, but organizers decided to venture across the Atlantic and host the games in St. Louis, seeing as the World’s Fair was also happening there that year.

The 1904 Olympics were innovative for another reason: it kicked off the tradition of awarding gold medals to the top finisher in each event. Many of the roughly 100 gold medals given out during the Games have been lost to history, and the few that remain are housed in museums and private collections.

But, in December, one of these rare 1904 gold medals hit the market. It sold last week for $545,371 at the end of an RR Auction’s sale of Olympics memorabilia.

The medal in question was awarded to Fred Schule, American runner who won the 110-meter hurdle event. One side is inscribed with the words “Olympiad 1904” and depicts an athlete holding a wreath. The other side shows Nike, the Greek goddess of victory, along with the words “110 Meter Hurdle” and “St. Louis U.S.A.” The medal’s original leather case and ribbon are still intact.

The medal had been put up for sale from the Schule family’s collection, per the Associated Press’ Michael Casey.

“Collectors often strive to assemble complete sets of Olympic medals from every games, and you simply can't complete a set without a 1904 gold medal,” says Bobby Eaton, chief operating officer of RR Auction, in a statement. “Within our vast network of collectors , there are no others in private hands from a sanctioned 1904 event. That level of rarity—combined with its condition and provenance—explains why collectors were so determined to acquire it.”

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The 1904 Olympics were initially slated to be held in Chicago. But organizers later moved the Games to St. Louis to combine them with the World’s Fair, which was commemorating the 100th anniversary of the Louisiana Purchase. Organizers also spread the Olympic events out over nearly five months. As a result, the Summer Games “became lost in the chaos,” according to the International Olympic Committee. Many European athletes decided to stay home because of the Russo-Japanese War, as well as the effort and expense required to travel to the United States. In the end, the majority of that year’s competitors were American or Canadian.

Several new sports debuted at the 1904 Games, including boxing, freestyle wrestling, decathlon and a dumbbells event. And the Games featured the Olympics’ first amputee, American gymnast George Eyser, who won six medals with a wooden leg.

But Olympic and World’s Fair organizers also teamed up to create “Anthropology Days,” a racist two-day event in which “savages” competed in various sports to demonstrate “the inherent inferiority of the world’s indigenous peoples,” as Slate’s Nate Dimeo wrote in 2008.

The auctioned-off medal represents "a snapshot of the early days of the modern Olympics,” according to Eaton. “To have one like [the 1904 gold medal]... is truly remarkable and a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for collectors.”

Just two other Olympic medals have commanded higher prices, reports Sports Illustrated’s Clemente Lisi. In 2013, a gold medal won by American runner Jesse Owens at the 1936 Games in Berlin sold for nearly $1.5 million. And, in 2012, Ukrainian boxer Wladimir Klitschko sold his 1996 Atlanta gold medal for $1 million to raise money for his charitable foundation.

Beyond the 1904 gold medal, the RR Auctions’ sale featured 384 Olympic artifacts. Other attention-grabbing items included the 1998 Nagano gold medal for ski jumping, which sold for $160,773, and the 1956 Stockholm gold medal for equestrian, which brought in $99,831.

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Sarah Kuta is a writer and editor based in Longmont, Colorado. She covers history, science, travel, food and beverage, sustainability, economics and other topics.