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Auction: 407 - The Numismatic Collector's Series: Coins, Medals, Banknotes, Jewelry and Autographs - e-Auction
Lot: 948

1936 Summer Olympics - XI Olympiad, Berlin. Group of PSA encapsulated Ticket stubs for the track events in which Jesse Owens won his historic four Gold Medals. August 3 - 100 meters (Owens first Gold Medal). PSA Ex+ / 5.5; August 4 - long jump (Owens second gold). PSA Ex-Mt / 6; August 5 - 200 meter dash (Owens third gold). PSA VG / 3; August 9 - 4 x 100 meter relay (Owens fourth gold). PSA Ex / 5; also 1936 Olympics booklet. Salmon red, Block R, 3. Platz, with seat (5, 8 and 9) stubs; and "Handbuch des Sports" cover (spine cracking). Seeking to outdo the 1932 Los Angeles Games, Adolf Hitler had a new 100,000-seat track and field stadium built for the 1936 Summer Olympics held in Berlin - the first ever Olympic Games to be televised (reaching 41 countries), as well as six gymnasiums and other smaller arenas. Hitler saw the Olympics as a propaganda vehicle to showcase Germany's might and the Nazi's heinous ideals of racial superiority and antisemitism. German Jewish athletes were barred or prevented by various means from participating in the Games. Jewish athletes from other countries were said to have been sidelined so as not to offend Hitler, while non-German Jewish athletes boycotted the games to protest the twisted ideals of the Nazi party. A few Jewish athletes, however, did participate. Robert Fein, an Austrian Jew even won gold in weightlifting (he was barred from competing next year) - much to Hitler's chagrin. But the greatest slap in the face to Nazi Germany's ideology and its presumption of Aryan superiority and supremacy was delivered by a young black American, James Cleveland "Jesse" Owens (1913-1980). Grandson of a slave, son of a poor Alabama sharecropper and his wife, Owens is regarded as one of Track and Field's greatest athletes. Before the eyes of the Führer und Reichskanzler and in his capital city, Owens achieved international fame becoming the first person in history to win four gold medals in a single Olympics.

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Starting price
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