A 1923 Green Bay Packers stock certificate was auctioned for more than $150,000 on Aug. 24.
It was a memorable couple of days for Heritage Auctions and its Summer Platinum Night Sports Auction on Aug. 23-24, highlighted by a Michael Jordan-Kobe Bryant Dual Logoman card that sold for $12.932 million and set the record for the most expensive sports card at a public auction.
That wasn’t the only item that made history.
A 1923 Green Bay Packers stock certificate shattered any previous Packers certificate record by closing at $152,500, which includes the buyer’s premium.
It was just the fourth time a 1923 stock certificate has been known to come up for auction.
The first sold for $3,720 in 2003. The second went for $44,400 in August 2019 and the third, which had significant condition issues, sold for $19,800 in February 2020.
What could possibly explain such a huge jump in a relatively short period of time?
“I mean, August 23, 2025, is going to go down in hobby history as a feat that will catapult Packer memorabilia into a completely different level,” said Heritage consignment director Chris Nerat, a graduate of Marinette High School and the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay. “We estimated the stock certificate, based on past results, at $30,000. It sold for five times that amount.
“The New York Yankees in baseball has always been the elite company of the hobby. Now, with the stock certificate selling at that amount, that’s a Yankee-caliber sale. I’ve been waiting for this to happen, honestly. The NFL is the most popular game in town.”
The Packers had public offerings in 1923, 1935, 1950, 1997 and 2011.
Only 1,000 shares at $5 each were offered in 1923, with anybody buying a share also agreeing to buy a minimum of six season tickets.
Local merchants raised $5,000 in selling all 1,000 shares.
A.B. Turnbull, the former Green Bay Press-Gazette publisher, assembled a group of five community leaders known as the “Hungry Five” to arrange the stock offering and raise the money to save the franchise.
Along with Turnbull, the group included Curly Lambeau, Gerald Clifford, Dr. W. Webber Kelly and Leland H. Joannes. Lambeau was the only football man among them.
There are not many 1923 Packers stock certificates known to exist. Adding to the scarcity of the item, it’s believed most of those stock certificates were replaced in 1935 in a sale held to cover team legal costs.
“I think we will continue to see an upward trend (in Packers memorabilia prices),” Nerat said. “It’s pretty exciting, being from that area and being involved in the hobby at the national level, to see Packer memorabilia and NFL memorabilia to start to approach those numbers that the baseball items are.”
Tom Brown's Super Bowl rings each sell for six figures
The Super Bowl I and Super Bowl II rings from former Packers defensive back Tom Brown didn’t set a record, but they did do well in the auction.
Each ring sold for $128,100, while his 1965 NFL Championship ring sold for $40,260.
The five items Brown’s children put up for auction — it included 1957 Vince Lombardi handwritten plays and notes and a Lombardi autographed index card — sold for a combined $314,028.
Brown’s youngest daughter, Jessie, said earlier this month that the Super Bowl rings were not what she cared most about with her father.
Tom Brown died in April after a long battle with dementia.
“What we would do is probably keep it, hold onto it and put it in a safe deposit box,” Jessie said. “We just felt someone would appreciate it way more than we do, and we had what we wanted. I had my dad for 44 years. That is what I value from him.”
Brown’s Super Bowl rings did even better than the ones owned by backup quarterback Zeke Bratkowski that were auctioned in February.
Bratkowski’s Super Bowl I ring fetched $118,950 and his Super Bowl II ring $94,550.
The highest auction price for a Super Bowl I ring remains the one from offensive lineman Fuzzy Thurston, which sold for $216,000 in November 2022.
The record for a Super Bowl II ring is believed to be linebacker and Pro Football Hall of Famer Dave Robinson’s, which sold for $174,000 in August 2022.
“It was a nice haul,” Nerat said about Brown’s rings. “On the Super Bowl rings, they exceeded our estimates by $48,000 each. Any time that happens, I’m happy. Heritage as a whole is happy. More importantly than anything, the family was very happy. I heard from (Jessie Brown). She was very happy. And the winning bidder is happy.
“It’s a good thing.”
It appears to be almost a lock moving forward that a ring from either of the first two Super Bowls will command close to six figures.
Gone are the days a Super Bowl I ring will sell for $73,409 the way Steve Wright’s was by Grey Flannel Auctions in May 2011.
“That’s not shocking at all,” said Nerat, who is a well-known Packers collector in the hobby but has never owned a Super Bowl I or II ring. “My question would be, why wouldn’t they hit six figures? It’s such a significant item, to have a Super Bowl I and a II ring. How many will ever be offered in a public setting? Not very many.
“There were only, whatever, 50 guys on the roster. Usually, the families keep them in the family. Sometimes they don’t, like in this case. But if you want a Super Bowl ring you have got to pay up. That’s the way it is.”
This article originally appeared on Green Bay Press-Gazette: Green Bay Packers 1923 stock certificate shatters auction record
Category: Football
