A gold medal awarded to Jesse Owens in the 1936 Olympics in Berlin sold for $1,466,574 early Sunday morning, the highest price ever paid for a piece of Olympic memorabilia.
The price paid shattered the previous record of $865,000 paid last April for a silver cup won by the winner of the first modern-day Olympic marathon in 1896. It also sold for nearly five times the highest price previously paid for a gold medal won by a member of the U.S Olympic team — Mark Wells’ gold from the 1980 ice hockey team sold for $310,700 in 2010.