Paul Hornung's 1962 NFL Championship Game jersey to be auctioned

The Green Bay Packers have won an NFL-record 13 championships, but their 1962 title team often is considered not just the best in franchise history but one of the finest the league has witnessed in more than 100 years.

With 11 future Pro Football Hall of Famers, the Packers went 13-1 that season and outscored opponents 415-148 on the way to a 16-7 win over the New York Giants in the NFL Championship Game.

Perhaps that’s why former Packers great Paul Hornung’s game-used jersey from the title game is expected to sell for at least $60,000 by Heritage Auctions in its Summer Platinum Night Sports Auction on Aug. 21-23.

The halfback's jersey already was at $30,500 – including the buyer’s premium – entering the final week of bidding.

Hornung autographed the jersey above his No. 5.

It has been photomatched to the championship game on Dec. 30, 1962, along with regular-season contests against the Minnesota Vikings in October of that year and the San Francisco 49ers in December.

It was the last jersey Hornung wore before he and Detroit Lions defensive tackle Alex Karras were suspended for the 1963 season for betting on NFL games and associating with gamblers.

“Paul Hornung was a huge part of that season,” Heritage consignment director Chris Nerat said. “The great thing about this jersey is that it’s a championship game jersey. You can count on one hand how many 1960s NFL Championship Game Packers jerseys have been photomatched.

“Not to mention it’s from a Hall of Famer, one of the best Packers that ever played the game.”

Heritage officials were confident they had a game-used jersey of Hornung when they received it from the consigner, but nobody knew the extent of what they had until the company sent it off to be potentially photomatched.

“We didn’t know what game it was used in,” Nerat said. “It doesn’t have any tagging left in it. The tail was trimmed because it was later used in practice, most likely. You can tell that because of the excessive wear on it. It’s not all game wear. But I could tell right away that it was an early 60s jersey by the font style of the numbers. I knew right away that it was manufactured by the Red Fox company, which has a cool tag. It is supposed to have a little tag with a little red fox on it and the size. Unfortunately, that tag no longer remains.

“But I knew it had a chance, being a white jersey, that it could have been used in that game. We checked that he had that font style in the game and then sent it off. Lo and behold, it came back as the championship jersey from the ’62 season.”

There aren’t many 1962 game-worn title jerseys known to have been made publicly available.

Grey Flannel Auctions sold defensive back Willie Wood’s jersey from the game for $9,424. It was auctioned in May 2012 and is worth far more now.

Although Heritage set an estimate on the Hornung jersey, there are so few that a potential price is simply a guess.  

“You could definitely say the sky is the limit,” Nerat said. “We estimated it at a conservative $60,000-plus. I wouldn’t be surprised if it goes way past that. But, you know, you just never know with something like this. It’s one of a kind.”

This weekend’s auction also features a 1923 Packers stock certificate.

It was one year ago this month that a Packers stock certificate from 1923 shattered any previous certificate record after selling for $152,500 in a Heritage auction.

The Packers had public offerings in 1923, 1935, 1950, 1997 and 2011.

Only 1,000 shares at $5 each were offered in 1923, with anybody buying a share also agreeing to buy a minimum of six season tickets.

Local merchants raised $5,000 in selling all 1,000 shares.

A.B. Turnbull, the former Green Bay Press-Gazette publisher, assembled a group of five community leaders known as the “Hungry Five” to arrange the stock offering and raise the money to save the franchise.

Along with Turnbull, the group included Curly Lambeau, Gerald Clifford, Dr. W. Webber Kelly and Leland H. Joannes. Lambeau was the only football man among them.

This is just the sixth time a 1923 stock certificate has been known to come up for auction.

The first sold for $3,720 in 2003. The second went for $44,400 in 2019 and the third, which had significant condition issues, sold for $19,800 in February 2020.

After the fourth one set the auction record, a fifth was sold earlier this year for $64,050. That certificate was restored, while the one that sold for more than $150,000 was in the best condition of any made available.

The estimate for the current one at auction is at least $80,000. It stood at $31,720 entering the week.

With so many different prices for the first five, how much will this one go for?

“When something that rare sells [for $152,500], then in theory you are most likely taking a big bidder out of the fold because they already now have one,” Nerat said. “That’s not to say they couldn’t bid on it and potentially have two of them, but logic would tell you they probably aren’t bidding.

“That could affect the price on another one that is offered for sale.”

This article originally appeared on Green Bay Press-Gazette: Paul Hornung's 1962 NFL Championship Game jersey to be auctioned