Stroke of luck
Almost trash, first Harvard-Yale prize could bring $5M at auction
Junk in a basement worth millions: It’s the modern American dream.
A Massachusetts family found the former in near-fairy-tale fashion four decades ago. A New York auction house hopes to give them the second part.
Sotheby’s hopes a pair of oars will bring $3-5 million at auction later this month. They were the prize for winning the first Harvard-Yale Regatta in 1852, considered the first sporting event between American colleges.
“Think about what has ensued over the years in intercollegiate athletics,” Yale heavyweight crew coach Steve Gladstone said.
The oars tie together 170 years of American history, the Civil War and the dawn of college sports, the modern memorabilia craze and the rivalry that drew almost 50,000 to the Yale Bowl last November.
“These were literally saved a few moments from being thrown in the dumpster,” said Richard Austin, Sotheby’s Global Head of Books & Manuscripts.
The story goes that a family bought a boarding house in Medford, Mass., across the Mystic River from Cambridge, in the early 1980s. The building, Austin said, was in bad shape when they began cleaning out the basement. Among the stuff left behind down there were two pieces of dark wood.
“One of the sons who stopped their father from throwing them in the dumpster saw that each oar had a little plaque,” Austin said. “It was probably pretty oxidized.”
The plaque screwed onto one oar’s handle said they were the prize of the “Regatta between Harvard and Yale,” presented by the Harvard Club of Oneida. The other said it was the first-place prize on Lake Winnipesaukee (with an alternate spelling) in New Hampshire, Aug. 3, 1852.
That was the first regatta of 154, with No. 155 in the historic rivalry set for June 11 on the Thames River.
“The time you feel (the power of history) the most is when you go to the training compounds,” Gladstone said, Yale’s Gales Ferry and Harvard’s Red Top a couple of miles away.
“Gales Ferry, you walk into the main building, it’s a time warp. It’s like going back to the 1800s. There are pictures of crews on the wall. It hasn’t changed. It moves you.”
But back to the Mystic River: The oars’ history is a bit dim. On hand to present the award was New Hampshire’s own Franklin Pierce, recently nominated for President by the Democratic Party. (Four years later, the Democrats declined to renominate him, going frying pan to fire with James Bu
chanan.)
What happened to the oars after that? The custody isn’t clear. Harvard’s athletic communications office asked around on campus recently, but “most people didn’t even know where to start looking.”
Which brings us to that basement 130 years later. The oars were dirty, Austin said, but made of tough black walnut, they were in pretty good shape otherwise.
Gladstone didn’t sound sold that anyone could say with certainty that these were the actual trophy oars from 1852. Austin said they check out as a relic of the era.
“Our silver department looked, and they’re the kind of plaques you’d expect that date to the 1850s,” Austin said.
Gladstone also didn’t doubt that they could deliver a big number.
The oars will be on display at Sotheby’s New York gallery May
19-23, the company’s press release said. Bids are open online May 17-24.
Sotheby’s declined to identify the sellers and said they wouldn’t be available for an interview.
“The family reached out to us a couple of years ago,” Austin said. “It’s something we’ve been thinking about from three or four years ago, and we finally decided it’s a good time.
“The family decided among themselves that they’re ready to do it. They’ve had them for 40something years.”
The oars may have a new owner by the 155th regatta, four grueling miles, the first regatta since 2019.
“What a shame” to miss two years because of the pandemic, Gladstone said; since the Civil War, the only other multi-year gap in the series was during World War II. “What a loss, but it is what it is. It’ll be great. We’ll be back up there starting to train right after graduation.”
Yale will be seeking the Sexton Cup, not trophy oars, for the fifth time in a row (it might be six if
2016 wasn’t declared a no-contest when the Crimson’s boat sank).
Harvard owns a big lead in the overall series, all the way back to the oldest intercollegiate sporting event in the nation.
“When I came to Yale 12 years ago now, it was like going back to the Mother Church,” Gladstone said. “It’s where it all began. Maybe it’s the same aura when you put on a Notre Dame football sweater, I would think.”