What is an Olympic gold medal actually worth?

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A silver medal in shooting from the 1900 Olympics in Paris recently sold for just $1,283.

Then there was a bronze medal from the 1956 Winter Games in Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy that sold for $3,750.

But it was the silver medal from the first modern Olympic Games in Athens in 1896 – there were no golds at the time – who won six figures on the eve of this year’s Games. It sold for $180,111, according to RR Auctions, the Boston auction house that handled all three sales.

While their sentimental value may be invaluable to athletes who wear them around their necks, Olympic medals find their way into pawn shops and auction blocks from the podium, where collectors collect rare coins, comic books, and other sports artifacts such as baseball cards.

“It’s a specialized collectible,” said Bobby Livingston, executive vice president of RR Auctions, which brokered the sale of the three medals and 18 other medals on July 22. “Those that have entered the market in recent years, there is no glut of them.”

One doesn’t have to be Caleb Dressel, the American swimmer who won five gold medals in Tokyo, to claim the medals.

Dozens of former Olympic athletes have sold their medals over the years. Some cited financial difficulties, while others said they were motivated by fundraising for charity.

Boston Celtics legend Bill Russell will put his gold medal from the 1956 Olympics, when he captained the NBA team, on the auction block this fall.

“I have decided to sell most of my collection,” Mr. Russell said in a video on Hunt’s auction site, Exton, Pennsylvania, who will be selling his medal, and some NBA championship rings. A warm-up jacket and other memorabilia.

Mr. Russell says some of the proceeds will go to MENTOR, a charity he co-founded that promotes youth mentorship opportunities. A donation will also be made to the Social Justice Initiative created by Celtics.

Auction experts said that although the names of the athletes are not engraved on the medals, the names are important, as are the circumstances associated with sporting achievements.

updated

August. 1, 2021, 7:15 a.m. ET

A gold medal won by an unidentified member of the 1984 NBA team, a list that includes Patrick Ewing and Chris Mullen, sold for $83,188 on July 22, RR Auctions said.

It was an impressive sum, but it’s just a fraction of the nearly $1.5 million that a collector paid in 2019 for one of the four gold medals Jesse Owens won at the 1936 Summer Games in Berlin. The selling price set a record for a piece of Olympic memorabilia, according to SCP Auctions, the Laguna Niguel, California, auction house that handled the sale.

Owens, a black American track and field athlete, gave a dominant performance in those games as Hitler watched.

Auction experts said that in addition to the origin and ownership history of collectibles such as medals, known as the source, their condition plays an important role in their price. Do they have their original tape? Did they come up with a case?

Not all Olympic medals are engraved with the name of the sport for which they were awarded, which auctioneers say could reduce their value if it wasn’t obvious.

In Tokyo, gold medals won by athletes overwhelmingly contain more silver than actual gold, which makes up about 6 grams of the total weight of 556 grams, according to the International Olympic Committee.

That amounts to about $800 in gold and silver in those medals, Philip Newman, co-founder and managing director of Metals Focus, a London-based research firm, said Sunday.

“If you’re winning, I think the value is probably irrelevant,” Newman said. “I would be surprised if anyone thought it was pure gold.”

The silver medals awarded at the Tokyo Games are made of pure silver and weigh 550 grams, which comes in at about $450, according to Mr. Neumann, who said the bronze medals would be much less valuable. They contain red copper, which is 95% copper and 5% zinc.

Each medal comes with a wooden case and features the five Olympic rings, the games’ official name and Nike, the Greek goddess of victory, a requirement of the International Olympic Committee.

Mr. Livingston said some collectors would gladly accept bronze.

“They are still Olympic medals,” he said. “Third place is still very good. As a collector, you can start with bronze if you don’t have a lot of money.”

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