A Paul Hornung jersey from his rookie season in 1957 sold for $103,700 at Heritage Auctions on Saturday night, setting a record for any Packers jersey at public auction.
Hornung gifted the jersey to a family in Wisconsin in the late 1960s, and it sat in their closet for years. Then, after a death in the family, it was sold to a local man, who suspected it was a game-used jersey, but didn’t realize it was Hornung’s rookie jersey.
He soon sold it.
Late last year, the current owner approached Davious Sports, a photo-matching company. Davious founder Mike Allen was able to quickly match the jersey to photos from the former Heisman Trophy winner's rookie season in 1957. But it didn’t stop there.
“I quickly found out Horning hung on to this jersey the rest of his career,” Allen told cllct. “We found wire photos, newspaper clippings ... as late as 1964 of him wearing the jersey.”
At the time, jerseys were often worn for multiple seasons and even recycled for other players, so the extensive use was not a shock. Allen spoke with experts ranging from the NFL Hall of Fame to the Green Bay Packers Museum, soon discovering that neither had a single jersey from that era (1954-1957) in which the team donned black durene uniforms, rather than the navy many had believed to be the case.
Davious posted on social media sharing the match. It was screen-shotted and posted in a Packers game-worn Facebook group, where the original buyer saw it and replied he was “kicking himself” for selling it.
The jersey was then additionally matched by Sports Investors Authentication and consigned to Heritage. A key attribute of the authentication included an examination of the history of Hornung’s No. 5, as he was the only Packers player to wear that number between 1946-1986, meaning all wear could be attributed to Hornung.
Will Stern is a reporter and editor for cllct.