Photo by TayebMEZAHDIA
Football fanatics are not shy when it comes to supporting their club. Whether it’s adding the newest kit to their wardrobe or grabbing a Funko pop of the club’s latest star, team memorabilia remains a popular and addictive hobby.
But when it comes to memorabilia, there is a big difference between purchasing a cheap plastic phone case with your club’s logo and bidding on an item that has a natural history behind it. Below are some of the rarest and most expensive pieces of memorabilia that can be found in the football community.
1966 England World Cup Medal
Football did not come home in this year’s Euros, but it did in 1966 when England won the World Cup. Besides a lifetime of admiration among the English faithful and never having to pay for a beer again, players on the winning side received a gold medal.
In 2005, Alan Ball decided to sell the rare medal, which he referred to as “a trinket that takes up space.” Unsurprisingly, the award and a commemorative tournament cap took in a whopping £140,000 at auction.
While Ball sold his medal for the most money, he wasn’t the only one to auction off this prized possession. Gordon Banks sold his World Cup medal a few years earlier for £124,750. It is safe to say as England’s international drought continues, these medals become rarer and more expensive with each passing day.
Pelé’s Tribute Crown
To commemorate the 1000th goal of Pelé’s historic career, the Brazilian government presented him with an actual crown. The unique tribute was made with red felt, metal laurels, and a football, of course. The letter M holds up a half gold, half silver stone on top (the M stands for Milesmo, which is thousand in Portuguese).
It’s an iconic piece of football history and came complete with a book that featured photos of Pelé wearing it. While estimates put the crown at £20,000, it ended up bringing in a whopping £162,500 after 30 bids were placed.
FA Cup
The silver two-handed trophy that cost only £25 to make back in 1896 brought in a whopping £760,000. Talk about a solid investment.
This particular version of the cup was used between 1896 and 1910. It was a replacement for the original version, which was stolen and rumored to have been melted down to make counterfeit coins by a petty criminal.
David Gold, co-owner of West Ham United, had purchased this version in 2005 and allowed it to be displayed at the National Football Museum in Manchester. Just another chapter in the story of the oldest and most interesting trophy in English football.
1945 Chelsea vs. Moscow Dynamo Ticket Stub
While ticket stubs are going the way of the dodo as the sport embraces a more digital approach, these keepsakes of a bygone era were saved as a way to remember and show others you attended an event. No ticket may be more valuable than the one featuring Chelsea and Moscow Dynamo in 1945.
With both countries embroiled in a war against the Axis, the countries craved a return to normalcy which football brought. So, just ten weeks after the war, Moscow Dynamo traveled to England for this highly anticipated event at Stamford Bridge. While estimates put the number at almost 100,000, who attended (people sat on the roof), not nearly as many tickets were administered.
There have been no recent auctions involving this infamous ticket stub, but experts put the value at around £2000. Not bad for a 75-year-old piece of paper.
USA Founders Club Pin
In the late ’80s, USA Soccer was desperate to make their presence felt on the international stage. But, unfortunately, the team had been on a decades-long run of failing to qualify for the World Cup. So it was a longshot that they would be considered as a host for the most prestigious event.
With no money in the bank, the United States World Cup Organizing Committee created some pins as a fundraiser. Now, these weren’t your run-of-the-mill
soccer trading pins you see passed around; these were pure gold. Two pins were designed. One was a generic all-gold pin with the Founders Club Logo, and another featured the official World Cup USA 94 logo.
Getting your hands on these soccer pins was no easy task. Individuals had to donate a minimum of $5000 while corporations were asked to donate $50,000. In total, only 106 members received these lucrative pins. From a global perspective, these pins may not have significance, but they were the start of unprecedented growth in US soccer, leading to them being a semi-regular participant in the World Cup.
1859 Football Rulebook
One of the oldest rulebooks known to exist, sold in 2021 for £57,000 at a Sotheby’s auction. Discovered in the Victorian scrapbook of a clergyman, the hand-annotated book was printed after attempts by the Sheffield Football Club to formalize the sport.
This unique and scarce piece of memorabilia features hand-written changes to the rules and features notable additions such as the corner kick and indirect free-kick that we still see today.
Jules Rimet Replica Trophy
This one is less known for the idea and more for the big mistake that was made. The Jules Rimet Trophy was awarded to World Cup winners between 1930 and 1970. The trophy has a storied history that involves thieves, smugglers, and some of the world’s greatest football players of all time competing over it.
But this particular version was put up for auction in 1997. It was shocking at the time as many people believed the original trophy had been stolen from Brazil and melted down. But at £250,000, there is no way it was a replica, right?
Unfortunately for the winners, FIFA, it turned out this was a replica. Researchers at the University of Manchester took X-rays to determine the composition of the trophy was bronze, not the silver the original was made of. Now whether this replica was given to the actual winners in 1970 is another mystery.