Olympic memorabilia on the block

Two timely auctions let buyers bring home a vintage Olympic medal from London

CLEVERLY TIMED auctions of Olympic Games memorabilia take place in London next week just days before the 2012 event gets underway. Posters, torches, medals, photographs, tickets and programmes from previous Olympiads will go under the hammer.

On Tuesday, Graham Budd Auctions, which specialises in sporting memorabilia, will sell more than 600 lots with items from every Olympic Games since Athens, 1896, the first of the modern era.

Highlights include an athlete’s participation medal from St Louis, 1904 (£14,000-€16,000/€18,000-€20,500); an official poster for Amsterdam, 1916, cancelled because of the first World War (£4,000-£6,000/ €5,000-€7,600); and a rare Sèvres porcelain vase given to gold-medal winners in Paris, 1924 (£9,000-£12,000/€11,500-€15,000).

Even items designed for the 2012 Games, including posters and a torch, are included.

At Bonhams auction in Knightsbridge on Wednesday, many of the lots date from 1948, the last time the Olympic Games were held in London. Britain was recovering from the second World War and the so-called “Austerity Games” took place in appropriately Spartan conditions at a time when food rationing was still in place. A record 59 countries sent teams although Germany and Japan were not invited and the Soviet Union declined its invitation.

A poster, customised to advertise the yachting events which were held in Torquay, Devon, depicts the ancient Greek discus thrower, Discobolus, superimposed on Big Ben with the hands on the clock set to 4pm, the time of the official opening of the Games. The estimate is £2,000-4,000/€2,500-€5,000).

An aluminium and steel torch, embossed “XlVth Olympiad 1948 London with thanks to the Bearer,” has an estimate of £2,000-£3,000 (€2,500-€3,800). It’s not, of course, unique. Multiple versions of the torch are made for each Games and even back in 1948 some 1,720 were made. Torches from games in Atlanta, Athens, Montreal, Seoul and Moscow also feature.

The most controversial Olympic Games ever held took place in Berlin in 1936 when Germany was under Nazi rule.

A limited edition of 12 offset prints of participating athletes by Leni Riefenstahl and signed by the artist is estimated at £2,500-£3,500/ €3,100-€4,400) Riefenstahl was a film director and photographer closely associated with the Third Reich. She made Triumph des Willens (Triumph of the Will), a notorious propaganda documentary about the Nuremberg rally. She filmed and photographed the Berlin Olympics at Hitler’s request.

To the Nazis’ dismay, the 1936 Games are best remembered for the four gold medals won by the black American athlete Jesse Owens. A photograph of “a relaxed off-duty Owens” is included in an album of gold-medal winners estimated at £600-800 /€760-€1,000.

See grahambuddauctions.co.ukand bonhams.com