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This 1968 Mexico City Olympics torch sold for $41,786 at auction.RR Auction An official 1968 Mexico City Olympics torch sold for $41,786 at auction as part of a sale of Olympics gear that also included gold medals from various games from 1908 to 1988. The museum-quality torch was notable because it was a so-called “Type …
An official 1968 Mexico City Olympics torch sold for $41,786 at auction as part of a sale of Olympics gear that also included gold medals from various games from 1908 to 1988.
The museum-quality torch was notable because it was a so-called “Type 6” torch, which was developed after a previous model exploded on its way to the games.
According to Boston-based RR Auction, which put on the sale, when the Olympic flame was being passed, per tradition, from Mariana Valls, son of the president of the Barcelona Athletics Federation, to Olympian Gregorio Rojo on a Barcelona street, “at the moment of transfer, Rojo’s torch exploded.” The auction house said that, “Both men received minor injuries . . . and the cause of the detonation was attributed to the fuel volatility and the ‘too-rapid contact of a lighted torch with an unlighted one.’ ”
That prompted the invention of a new, safer model which eventually arrived safely in Mexico City. An Oslo 1952 torch sold for $55,000.
