A SPECIAL REPLICA World Cup trophy presented to Pele fetched €500,000 at an auction of his personal memorabilia in London this afternoon.
Two of the 75-year-old Brazil legend’s three World Cup winners medals also went under the hammer selling for well over their estimated price going for a collective price of €430,00.
However, the Jules Rimet trophy was the most expensive individual lot with Swiss watchmaking giant Hublot timing their final bid perfectly for an item which had been figured to fetch between up to half a million euro.
It had been made for him after Brazil’s third World Cup victory in 1970 in Mexico.
Pele’s medal from his first World Cup victory in 1958 when he was just a teenager sold for €250,000 way over the estimated price.
The other one of the two sold on Wednesday — from the 1962 World Cup win in Chile — reached €178,000.
The first day of the auction on Tuesday hadn’t featured such lucrative returns.
However, his pair of football boots he sported in the film Escape To Victory — which featured actors of the calibre of Michael Caine mixed in with footballers like Pele and England’s World Cup winning skipper Bobby Moore — engineered enough excitement and went for just over €10,000.
A portion of the proceeds from the sale will go to help Pequeno Principe, the largest children’s hospital in Brazil, which Pele said was close to his heart.
The42 is on Snapchat! Tap the button below on your phone to add!
