The jersey that 49ers legend Joe Montana wore in two Super Bowls was auctioned off this week, and it ended up smashing the all-time record for the most money ever paid for a football jersey in an auction.
The bidding at Goldin Auctions started on Feb. 10 and went through March 1, and after all was said and done, the jersey ended up selling for $1.212 million. Things got crazy during the final day of bidding. Going into March 1, the highest bid was at $485,000, but then there were 12 bids over the final 24 hours, which shot the price up to over $1.2 million.
Before this auction came along, no football jersey had ever even been sold for $500,000 at auction. Montana's jersey broke a record that had been held by a Tom Brady Buccaneers' jersey, which sold for $480,000 in January 2022.
If you're wondering what makes this Montana jersey so special, it's the fact that he wore it during TWO different Super Bowl wins. The first time Montana wore it came in 1984 when the 49ers beat the Dolphins 38-16 in Super Bowl XIX.
The 49ers returned to the Super Bowl four years later and although he wasn't planning to wear the same jersey, it ended up happening anyway after his wife, Jennifer, surprisingly packed the Super Bowl XIX jersey in with his belongings for Super Bowl XXIII.
Jennifer included a message with the jersey that said "Maybe you want to wear it again," so that's exactly what Montana did.
Joe Montana wore the exact same jersey for the Super Bowl...four years apart.
— Darren Rovell (@darrenrovell) February 4, 2018
The morning of Super Bowl XXIII (1989), Montana's wife Jennifer took his XIX (1985) jersey out of a SCRAPBOOK & gave it to him in a bag with a note:
"Maybe you want to wear it again."
He did. pic.twitter.com/2tt8u3o2pV
In the photo below, which was taken at Super Bowl XXIII, you can see that the stripes on Montana's jersey are slightly different from the stripes on Jerry Rice's jersey (He's No. 80, standing in front of Montana).
Great story from the Joe Montana documentary. Joe wore the same jersey in Super Bowl XXIII that he wore 4 years earlier in SB XIX, after his wife Jennifer snuck it into the bottom of his suitcase. The stripes on Joe's sleeves were different from all of his teammates. pic.twitter.com/zEbf6zvyfZ
— LOLKNBR (@LOLKNBR) January 28, 2022
The twice-worn Super Bowl jersey is a part of NFL history.
During the 49ers' 20-16 win over the Bengals in Super Bowl XXIII, Montana engineered a game-winning, 93-yard scoring drive over the final three minutes that was capped by a 10-yard touchdown pass to John Taylor. The touchdown came with just 34 seconds left, which is still the latest that a game-winning TD pass has ever been thrown in the Super Bowl.
Montana won four Super Bowls during his Hall of Fame career, and it's pretty wild that two of those came while wearing the same jersey. Montana couldn't have worn the jersey in his other two Super Bowls, though, because the 49ers wore white in both of those wins, which came over the Bengals (Super Bowl XVI) and Broncos (Super Bowl XXIV).
Montana has been auctioning off a lot of memorabilia from his personal collection over the past month and the Super Bowl jersey ended up selling for more than anything else in the collection. The jersey he wore in Super Bowl XXIV also fetched a wildly high number, selling for $720,000 (The 49ers beat the Broncos 55-10 in that Super Bowl, which still stands as the record for largest margin of victory in a Super Bowl).
He also auctioned off the uniform he wore in his final 49ers game, and that went for $232,800. The uniform from his final NFL game ever, which came with the Chiefs, was also auctioned off, and that went for $92,400.
