Missing Super Bowl Ring

Jerry Kramer was a right guard on the Green Bay Packers. He was on the Packers team that defeated the Kansas City Chiefs, 35-10, on January 15, 1967, in the first AFL-NFL Championship game (now called the Super Bowl). Kramer was given a championship ring, a highlight in any athlete’s career. Many athletes claim that they play for the rings (of course, after they are financially stable).

     However, in 1981, fourteen years after Kramer received the valued ring---it disappeared. And then the ring showed up again, but in an auction catalog. Actually, the bidding for the ring was already at $20,000 when it was withdrawn. Most likely it could have doubled or tripled if it had not been pulled. Rings normally would not go for that high a dollar figure, but this one was the personal ring of a star player of one of the legendary teams in not just professional football, but in all of sports history. Kramer claimed the ring was stolen, but how did that happen?

     As Jerry Kramer tells the story, he was on a United Airlines flight from Chicago to New York. While he was in the restroom he removed the ring to wash his hands. He put the ring on the restroom countertop. After he returned to his seat and realizing he had left the ring in the lavatory, he returned to the scene of the crime, and the ring was gone. Airline flight attendants and pilots made several pleas on the flight to return the ring, but none of the passengers came forward. The ring had vanished.

     Kramer first learned that the ring might have surfaced when he received a mysterious call from a person in Canada. A man asked him if he was missing his Super Bowl ring, and if so, that he shortly might receive a tip about his ring. This call was followed by another, and in short order learned about an auction that included his ring. Kramer called the auction company and told them that the ring was stolen and to withdraw the lot. The company obliged and Jerry Kramer now has his Super Bowl I ring back on his finger. He is pleased about that, but still wonders what road his ring followed since 1981. He may never find the answer to that.

     The fact that Jerry Kramer has always been an upstanding public citizen, who has been supportive of the sports memorabilia industry helped persuade the auction company that Kramer was telling the truth when he told his story of how the ring disappeared. But again, this is another of those periodic situations in which the rightful owner makes a claim for an auction item that disappeared.

     So how can you protect yourself from receiving an auction item which then needs to be taken from you because it was considered stolen? All you can do is hope that the auction company doesn’t let it go that far, and that the item of which you are the high bidder is legally yours.