1961 Green Bay Packers-signed Championship Football
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GUEST:
I have a football that my father gave to me. It's from the 1961 Super Bowl, the first Super Bowl, I assume, and the Green Bay Packers.
APPRAISER:
Okay, and are you from Wisconsin?
GUEST:
I certainly am.
APPRAISER:
So you’re—
GUEST:
I'm a Packer backer!
APPRAISER:
You're a Packer backer. It is a 1961 championship football. The first Super Bowl was held in 1967, however. This was the seven of 11 championships the Green Bay Packers won before the AFL and NFL merged, so prior to the first Super Bowl. But it is a championship ball nonetheless…
GUEST:
Oh, okay.
APPRAISER:
…and a nice one. How did you get this football?
GUEST:
Well, my father gave it to me. He was a construction superintendent for the Milwaukee County Park Commission, and also was in charge of all the parking of the cars at the stadium. So… he was very good friends, you know, very good acquaintances, and they knew all the guys on the team and so forth, he was always there early, so… they're the ones who gave it to him. I don't know who of the Packer organization gave it to him.
APPRAISER:
The first thing that popped out at me is that the autographs are strong. If we're grading them on a scale of one to ten, ten being the most potent, there are none here that I would qualify as below an eight…
GUEST:
Wow!
APPRAISER:
…and that's what makes this championship ball stand out. Among the signatures we see here, in front and prominently is Vince Lombardi, their Hall of Fame coach. And as we take a look at the, uh, back end of the football, we see almost the entire roster, among them Hall of Famers Nitschke, Willie Wood, Bart Starr, an entire roster of superstars that ultimately helped that 1961 team win the championship. It's the first year the Green Bay Packers bore the "G" on their helmets, so there's a lot going for this ball.
GUEST:
Oh, okay.
APPRAISER:
That said, at auction, this ball would fetch a price, in my estimation, of $5,000 to $7,000.
GUEST:
Really? Wow, never dreamt it.
APPRAISER:
Yeah.
GUEST:
That's great.
APPRAISER:
It's a neat item. They are a unique team, the '61 team. There were three players on the roster who had to be deployed to active duty because of the building of the Berlin Wall, so even Paul Horning was one of them, one of the superstars.
GUEST:
That gives me chills. Really.
APPRAISER:
And despite having a lack of three stand-out players, they still were the best team in the league, 11-3.
GUEST:
Mm-hmm, that's our Packers.
Appraisal Details
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