Posted in: Current News, Pop Culture | Tagged: Olympic Torch, Ripley's Believe it or Not!

Olympic Torch Collection Acquired By Ripley's For Display

Ripley's Believe it Or Not! has acquired a near-complete collection of Olympic Torches, which they will be putting on display.

Olympic torches are some of the rarest and hard-to-find sports memorabilia in the world, as not that many are made or maintained, and they are coveted around the entire globe. That makes this announcement really special. Ripley's has acquired a near-complete set of torches from every Olympic game in history. The combined value of the 116 torches is estimated to be around $10 million. This includes:

• The 1936 Berlin Games torch, which is highly coveted and historically significant, as this was the first time the torch relay was introduced.
• The 1960 Squaw Valley Winter Olympics torch, signifying the first time the Games were held in the U.S. and a new standard for Olympic presentations thanks to pageantry committee chairman Walt Disney.
• All seven versions of the 1968 Mexico City Summer Olympics torch. The creation of different versions of this torch was due to design flaws that caused burns on torch bearer's hands.
• The most recent 2024 Paris Olympic torch.
• The most valuable torch in the collecting world, the 1952 Helsinki Olympics torch.

Ripley's Olympic Preservation Is Amazing

John Corcoran, Ripley's Director of Exhibits: "The Ripley collection of authentic Olympic Torches rivals any in the world. The Olympic Museum (founded by the International Olympic Committee) in Switzerland and the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Museum in Colorado feature 'complete' collections, including authorized replicas of Innsbruck 1964. Many of the earlier Games produced very small numbers of torches, most of which are in museums, making a complete private collection a challenging feat."

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