Rare Mexico City 1968 Olympic 'Type 6' torch sells for $91,451 at auction
The Mexico City Games produced more relay torch variations than any other Olympic Games after a series of technical problems required repeated redesigns.
BOSTON, MASS.—
A rare Mexico City 1968 Summer Olympics ‘Type 6’ torch, accompanied by its original Spanish torch relay participation medal, sold for $91,451 to lead RR Auction’s Olympics sale, which closed July 23.
The Type 6 torch is one of the rarest documented variations produced for the 1968 Olympic torch relay. Developed after an explosion during a flame-transfer ceremony in Barcelona prompted safety concerns among organizers, the simplified design was introduced for use during portions of the relay in Spain. The existence of the Type 6 torch remained largely unknown until nearly 50 years after the Games, when Olympic researchers authenticated the model through contemporary photographs and archival documentation.
The Mexico City Games produced more relay torch variations than any other Olympic Games after a series of technical problems required repeated redesigns. Early torches overheated, leading organizers to introduce successive modifications before the Spanish Olympic Committee developed the Type 6 model in response to the Barcelona incident. The accompanying official Spanish torch relay participation medal depicts the distinctive Type 6 torch and commemorates the Olympic flame’s passage through Spain.
The Olympic flame retraced Christopher Columbus’s voyage to the New World before arriving in Mexico on Oct. 6, 1968. Six days later, Mexican Olympian Enriqueta Basilio became the first woman to light an Olympic cauldron, concluding a 13,620-kilometer journey involving 2,778 torchbearers. Today, the Type 6 is considered among the rarest documented Olympic torch variations.
"What makes this torch special is that it wasn't part of the original plan," said Bobby Livingston, executive vice president at RR Auction. "After safety concerns arose during the Spanish leg of the relay, organizers introduced a new design, and that decision produced what is considered one of the rarest documented versions of the 1968 Olympic torch."
RR Auction’s Olympics sale realized $980,000.
Additional highlights included:
• FIFA gold presentation medal awarded to President Jules Rimet at the inaugural FIFA World Cup in Uruguay (1930), sold for $71,250
• Chamonix 1924 Winter Olympics gold winner’s medal, sold for $62,500
• Lillehammer 1994 Winter Olympics torch, sold for $50,908
• Paris 1894 First Olympic Congress gilt bronze commemorative medal from the collection of Olympic Executive Javier Gómez-Navarro, sold for $49,976
• Albertville 1992 Winter Olympics torch, sold for $46,926
• Stockholm 1912 Olympic solid gold winner’s medal for shooting (team trap), sold for $46,506
