ST. LOUIS- Bidding has already passed $75,000 at a Boston-based auction house for a silver medal won by an American track and field athlete at the 1904 Olympic Games held in St. Louis.
The medal, won by Daniel Frank, is among nearly 200 Olympic-related items up on the auction block by RR Auction, along with silver medals from London, Nagano and Torino.
According to the auction house:
During the competition, Frank won the silver medal with a leap of 22′ 7 3/4″ (6.89 m), finishing second to fellow American Myer Prinstein, who set the Olympic record with a jump of 24′ 1″ (7.34 m) and exacted revenge on Frank who had recently bested him at the 1904 Metropolitan AAU Championships. Modified by its recipient to be worn and displayed with pride, this marvelous early Olympic winner’s medal is only the second we have offered from the historic III Olympiad.
The medal is Silver, 39 mm, 39 gm (51 gm with bar and chain), designed and minted by Dieges & Clust, New York. The front, inscribed “Olympiad, 1904,” depicts a victorious athlete holding a wreath in front of an ancient Greek athlete frieze and the Acropolis. The reverse pictures a Standing Nike and bust of Zeus, engraved with the event’s name within a wreath, “Running Broad Jump.”
Includes a period leather case for the medal, and an impressive period leather scrapbook, roughly 80 leaves, dating between December 1900 and September 1912, containing well over one hundred vintage newspaper clippings related to Frank’s athletic exploits.
RR Auction citation
The bidding for the medal and scrapbook is up to $75,000. The auction closes January 20, 2022 at 6pm ET. Another lot in the auction features other athletic items, unrelated to Frank’s Olympic competition, which it says is directly from his personal collection.
Frank died in 1965.