{"id":536571,"date":"2026-03-14T20:27:12","date_gmt":"2026-03-14T20:27:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/536571\/"},"modified":"2026-03-14T20:27:12","modified_gmt":"2026-03-14T20:27:12","slug":"jim-irsays-memorabilia-collection-nets-over-93m-at-auction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/536571\/","title":{"rendered":"Jim Irsay&#8217;s memorabilia collection nets over $93M at auction"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Late <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tsn.ca\/nfl\/team-page\/indianapolis-colts\/310\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.tsn.ca\/nfl\/team-page\/indianapolis-colts\/310\" target=\"_blank\">Indianapolis Colts<\/a> owner Jim Irsay\u2019s memorabilia collection brought in $93,656,609 during live auctions from Thursday to Saturday with Christie\u2019s, with online auctions ongoing.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Christie\u2019s pre-auction estimates for the items being sold in March was $40 million.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">While Irsay\u2019s collection was heavily music-focused, a number of notable sports items sold: the saddle used by jockey Ron Turcotte as he rode Secretariat to the 1973 Triple Crown sold for $1.524 million, the most ever paid for a horse racing item; the Edmonton Oilers jersey Wayne Gretzky scored his 500th NHL goal in sold for $952,500; Muhammad Ali\u2019s fight robe from Ali vs. Liston II &#8212; his first public appearance after changing his name from Cassius Clay &#8212; sold for $444,500; a Jackie Robinson bat from the 1953 season sold for $406,400; and a Mead spiral notebook containing 28 pages of Sylvester Stallone\u2019s original \u201cRocky\u201d script sold for $508,000.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">\u201cThe Irsay sale did justice to the brilliance of the collector, and of the monumental pieces he brought together, iconic objects that tell the story of our culture and our times,\u201d Julien Pradels, president of Christie\u2019s Americas, said in a statement. \u201cThe Irsay collection is singular, but Christie\u2019s will have other amazing sales in the space moving forward.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">The auction set 23 world records, including the most paid for a guitar and the most paid for a literary manuscript: David Gilmour of Pink Floyd\u2019s famed black Stratocaster, which sold for $14.55 million, and writer Jack Kerouac\u2019s original typescript of \u201cOn the Road,\u201d which sold for $12.135 million. (Country music star Zach Bryan purchased the Kerouac scroll and is in the process of converting the St. Jean Baptiste Church in Lowell, Massachusetts, into the Jack Kerouac Center.)<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Jerry Garcia of the Grateful Dead\u2019s custom Doug Irwin guitar \u201cTiger\u201d sold for $11.56 million, while Kurt Cobain of Nirvana\u2019s 1969 Lake Placid blue Fender Mustang hit $6.907 million. Before the Irsay auction, the record paid for a guitar was $6.01 million for Cobain\u2019s 1959 Martin D-18E acoustic-electric used during Nirvana\u2019s \u201cMTV Unplugged\u201d concert.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">According to Christie\u2019s, a portion of the proceeds will be donated to philanthropic causes supported by Jim Irsay during his lifetime.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Irsay died in March 2025 of cardiac arrest at 65. The FBI is investigating the circumstances of Irsay\u2019s death and the potential connection to his relationship with Dr. Harry Haroutunian, a California addiction specialist who reportedly prescribed Irsay pain pills and ketamine.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Late Indianapolis Colts owner Jim Irsay\u2019s memorabilia collection brought in $93,656,609 during live auctions from Thursday to Saturday&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":536572,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[436],"tags":[49,48,138858,514,82],"class_list":["post-536571","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-indianapolis-colts-sports-football-team-team-statscom-338","tag-nfl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/536571","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=536571"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/536571\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/536572"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=536571"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=536571"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=536571"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}