When a Steve Prefontaine autograph arrives at James Spence Authentication, it’s a rare moment.
“We see very few of them,” said Jimmy Spence III, who runs the business with his father, Jim. “Less than 15 a year.”
Thursday marks the 49th anniversary of Prefontaine’s tragic death, and those who collect Pre memorabilia do so not only because of the distance runner's legend, but because the chase for valuable items is so difficult.
Prefontaine died at 24 when he crashed his orange 1973 MGB convertible into a rock embankment hours after another yet another first-place at Oregon's Hayward Field.
At the time of his death, he owned seven American distance records, ranging from the 2,000 to 10,000 meters.
Although Pre was very much a local legend in Eugene, Oregon, where he dominated as a collegian and later in preeminent amateur events, very few Prefontaine collectibles exist today.
Even the best item to ever surface wasn’t perfect.
A pair of Nike waffle shoes, said to be worn by Prefontaine during his Oregon career, sold at Sotheby’s in 2022 for $163,800. The auction house felt confident saying the shoes were worn by Prefontaine due to the consignor and the provenance, which they did not disclose.
That Prefontaine wore the waffles at some point is definitely likely — the shoes were the standard for Oregon coach (and Nike co-founder) Bill Bowerman's runners at the time — there is no available photographic evidence of it.
“Worn items from Steve rarely come on the market, so when you see one, grab it,” said Brahm Wachter, head of modern collectibles at Sotheby’s. “You won’t see it again."
Still, Prefontaine continues to have a strong following both in the running and collectible community. Two movies were made about Prefontaine's life in the late 1990s, and his 1970 Sports Illustrated cover remains a coveted item. There are nearly 800 Prefontaine items currently on ebay.
The biggest Pre collector in the world is likely Jordy Geller, a Nike collector who now runs sneaker consignment at Goldin Auctions.
Geller says he owns about 15 Prefontaine autographs, including a high school yearbook where the runner signed his name next to all nine pictures of him. He also owns several pairs of shoes made for Pre for the 1976 Montreal Olympics, which he never got to compete in.
But the most interesting piece Geller owns is a signed page Prefontaine’s barber ripped out of his appointment book.
Pre wrote in this name in the book on May 29, 1975, for a 2 p.m. haircut. He later came in and crossed his name out, telling barber Pete Peterson that he just wanted to concentrate on the race.
Hours later, he won the 5,000 meters against Frank Shorter, who won the gold at the 1972 Olympics in Munich, where Prefontaine finished a disappointing fourth place.
By the early morning of May 30, Pre was gone.
“I’m surprised by how little there is out there,” Geller said. “If something is signed, it’s mostly on an index card, not on a program, and I’ve never seen a single SI cover signed by him.”
Even Nike displays replica Pre items behind the glass in its lobby at the Steve Prefontaine building at its headquarters in Beaverton, Oregon, instead of genuine articles.
Nike sources told cllct that the company does have a fair amount of Prefontaine originals, though several items were returned years ago because Nike couldn’t prove to the Prefontaine family how it acquired certain pieces.
One Nike source said the company does have an original “Stop Pre” shirt, made, sarcastically, to oppose the “Go Pre” shirts at the 1972 Olympic trials. After Pre famously qualified for the 5,000 meters, he wore the shirt around the track.
Pre collectors clamor for those shirts, though they were reproduced early and often, making it hard to know if it’s a first-run model.
One eBay seller has offered a “Stop Pre” shirt with a "Buy It Now" price of $10,000 for five years. When asked if it’s the real deal, the seller wrote cllct, “Just have to base it off the tag, cut of the shirt and texture of print. Everything checks out for it to be an original.”
Tickets to Pre’s races do pop up from time to time. His Olympic debut and his fourth-place finish tickets from 1972 are not hard to find. Among the more challenging is an Olympic trials ticket for the “Stop Pre” race. PSA has graded just four of those.
Geller says next year’s 50th anniversary should inspire more people to seek out Prefontaine collectibles.
“The 50th anniversary is the biggest, because people who were there are still alive,” Geller said.
The problem? The chance that enough new high items enter the market to satisfy the interest is very low.
Darren Rovell is the founder of cllct.com and one of the country's leading reporters on the collectible market. He previously worked for ESPN, CNBC and The Action Network. cllct gets a percentage of any sales driven by the ebay link in this story.