Former NBA star Walter Davis is auctioning off the gold medal he won at the 1976 Olympics in Montreal.
The six-time NBA All-Star was a part of the American team that defeated the former Yugoslavia in the gold medal game of July 25, 1976.
The auction is part an annual “Hall of Fame” basketball-themed collection on GreyFlannelAuctions.com. Other items up for sale include game-worn shoes and jerseys worn by the likes of Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, Jerry West and Julius Erving.
Bidding for the gold medal opened at $10,000, with the top bid having climbed to $12,000 as of Wednesday. Bidding will continue until Sept. 7.
GreyFlannelAuctions.com called the medal “an extremely rare treasure.”
The 1976 gold medal weighs 5.45 ounces, complete with a 60-millimeter diameter and a thickness of .50 centimeters. The gold-plated medal, which contains roughly six grams of pure gold, was presented to the American team following their win.
The face of the medal features a design by Florentine artist Giuseppe Cassioli. Created for the 1928 Olympic Games in Amsterdam, the design was used on all Summer Olympic medals until 2004. It reads, “XXIe Olympiade Montreal 1976.”
The verso shows the 1976 Olympic logo and the victor’s laurel wreath rendered in the bold, uncluttered style of the Montreal Games. The bottom edge of the medal is engraved “Basketball.”
The medal includes a letter of authenticity, signed by Davis on July 26, 2012, reading in part: “This is the Gold Medal that I was awarded after our U.S. team defeated Yugoslavia to win the Gold.”
Other Davis items in the auction include a basketball commemorating a 1983 game in which he scored 34 consecutive points and a trophy honoring his 15,000th point in the NBA.
Davis, 57, was an All-American at the University of North Carolina and was coached on the 1976 Olympic squad by his college coach, Tar Heels coach Dean Smith. Nicknamed “The Greyhound,” Davis was the 1978 NBA Rookie of the Year and the Phoenix Suns’ all-time leading scorer. The Suns retired his jersey in 1994.
For his career, Davis averaged 18.9 points, 3.8 assists, 3.0 rebounds and 1.2 assists per game.
