★ The Sports Examiner: Chronicling the key competitive, economic and political forces shaping elite sport and the Olympic Movement.★
★ To get the daily Sports Examiner Recap by e-mail: sign up here! ★
≡ OWENS IN BERLIN IN ‘35 ≡
The brilliant story of Jesse Owens at the 1936 Olympic Games in Nazi Germany, winning four gold medals and shattering the myth of Aryan supremacy in front of Adolf Hitler at the Berlin Olympiastadion is well known and rightly celebrated.
But that wasn’t Owens’ first appearance in the German capital. His picture was there a year earlier!
The Heritage Auctions Spring Sports Catalog Auction which concluded on Sunday (18th) included a remarkable collector’s/trading card of Owens from 1935, in which he was pictured as no. 49 in a large set of perhaps 300 cards of athletes to look for at the 1936 Berlin Games.
The cards were made by Berlin cigarette manufacturer, Muratti, and the brand is still produced, originally founded in 1821 in Turkey. Muratti was made in Germany and Britain in the 1880s, and the Berlin factory was eventually swallowed by the Nazi military. The brand is now owned by Philip Morris International.
But in 1935, Muratti was selling cigarettes with trading cards included in the packs, just like baseball cards in the U.S. It had three series going prior to the 1936 Berlin Games, with the second group of cards of athletes to watch for:
● On the front is a photograph of Owens from 1933 as a high schooler from East Technical in Cleveland, Ohio. By 1935, he was already at Ohio State and equaled the world record in the 100-yard dash (9.4) and set world marks in the 200 m and 220 yards of 20.3, the 200 m and 220-yard hurdles at 22.6 and the long jump at 8.13 m (26-8 1/4), a mark that would stand for 25 years!
● On the back (translated from the original German):
FOCAL POINTS OF GERMAN SPORT
A collected work in 3 volumes
Volume II:
“Sports people are preparing”
Picture 49
Jesse Owens,
America’s champion sprinter and long jump world record holder with 8.13 m. The Negro is considered the most visible man for the long jump in Berlin in 1936.
By classifying the pictures in the scrapbook we have issued, the collector receives a sports history of our time, which is connected in the text and pictures. The album “Sports people are preparing” is available at the price of 1 Reichsmark in all cigarette sales shops or can be obtained directly from us.
The pictures are enclosed with the packs of 10, 25 and 50 pieces of our brand “Muratti Privat.”
In preparation:
Volume III:”The XI Olympiad 1936, Berlin”
Cigarette Factory
Muratti Aktiengesellschaft
Berlin
Given that the card has Owens’ long jump mark from the 25 May 1935 Big Ten meet, the cards were produced in June at the earliest. And these cards were in circulation, despite the Nazi hatred for non-Aryans of all kinds. American star Eulace Peacock, the 1935 U.S. champion in the 100 m and long jump, both times over Owens, and also Black, was also part of the Muratti series, along with Finland distance star Paavo Nurmi and Norwegian skating star Sonja Henie.
The card, graded Excellent-Mint 6 by Professional Sports Authenticator (PSA), sold for $5,978.00 with the buyer’s premium. The PSA register shows the Owens card is not too rare, with 70 graded examples known. A 2022 sale of a grade-8 card went for $22,200, also by Heritage.
Quite astonishing that Owens – and Peacock – were already being promoted in Berlin a year ahead of the 1936 Olympic Games, despite being propagandized against by the Nazi regime.
¶
★ Receive our exclusive, weekday TSX Recap by e-mail by clicking here.
★ Sign up a friend to receive the TSX Recap by clicking here.
★ Please consider a donation here to keep this site going.
For our updated, 694-event International Sports Calendar for 2025 and beyond, by date and by sport, click here!
