LOT #80116 |
Sold on Feb 23, 2019 for: Not Sold
2014 Sochi Winter Olympics Meteorite-Embedded Gold Medal....
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Description
The rarest Gold Medal of the post-war era!
2014 Sochi Winter Olympics Meteorite-Embedded Gold Medal.
Easily both the rarest and most unusual Olympic medal ever minted,
the offered specimen is one of just fifty created for presentation
on just a single day of the 2014 Sochi Games. On February 15, 2013,
a twenty-meter near-Earth asteroid crashed through the Earth's
atmosphere, shattering about eighteen miles over Chelyabinsk,
Russia and raining fragments down across the region. It was the
largest object to enter Earth's atmosphere in over a century,
releasing as much energy as thirty Hiroshima atomic bombs.One creative mind decided that competitors earning Gold Medals on the anniversary of that thrilling event should be presented with a second special commemorative medal containing a fragment of that meteor. Just fifty of these special medals were made, ten going to athletes and the other forty to well-connected executives and dignitaries.
"We will hand out our medals to all the athletes who will win gold on that day, because both the meteorite strike and the Olympic Games are global events," explained Alexei Betekhtin, culture minister for the Chelyabinsk region.
Crafted from gilt silver, the medals feature imagery inspired by the dash-cam videos that served as the primary visual documentation of the heavenly event. Verso records the date of the meteor strike and a crest of some sort, likely that of the Chelyabinsk region.
The medal weighs ninety grams (90 g.) and is presented in its original velvet case with a Russian-language certificate. A truly fascinating piece of Olympic and global history, and one of the greatest rarities of the former.
Auction Info
2019 February 23 - 24 Platinum Sports Auction - Dallas #50011 (go to Auction Home page)
Auction Dates
February, 2019
23rd-24th
Saturday-Sunday
Internet/Mail Bids: 0
Lot Tracking Activity: N/A
Page Views: 1,242
Buyer's Premium per Lot:
20% of the successful bid per lot.
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