Mike Bossy's first two Stanley Cup rings fetch highest-ever prices for Cup rings at auction
Mike Bossy's Stanley Cup rings from 1980 and 1981 with the Islanders sold at auction. Credit: AP/Richard Drew (Bossy); HA.com
Mike Bossy’s first two Stanley Cup rings set records this past weekend as the most valuable Cup rings ever sold at auction, according to Heritage Auctions, which sold the rings at its Winter Platinum Night Sports Auction.
Bossy’s 1980 Islanders championship ring brought $222,000. Then his 1981 ring surpassed it at $228,000.
His daughter Josiane recently told Newsday that she decided to sell her half of the memorabilia she inherited from her father, who died of lung cancer in April 2022, but that her sister Tanya opted to keep hers. Tanya has her father’s ’82 and ’83 rings.
The next-most-expensive item among the 144 in the Bossy collection was a signed, game-worn Islanders jersey from the 1983-84 season that sold for $49,200.
“As much as he was the best dad he could be, when I look at the hockey things, I think it really belongs to the people who love hockey and who love him for the hockey player he was,” Josiane said.
“That’s why I thought it would be best to get it to fans or collectors or people that would see the value of it.”
The biggest-ticket item in the auction also was hockey-related. The only known sealed case of 1979-80 O-Pee-Chee cards, including Wayne Gretzky’s first card as an Edmonton Oiler, sold for $3.72 million.
“We knew from the moment we heard this O-Pee-Chee case existed that it would get the attention of hockey card collectors worldwide,” Chris Ivy, Heritage’s director of sports auctions, said in a news release.
“Those hockey collectors played an integral part in the success of this Winter Platinum Night event with world record results achieved for both the O-Pee-Chee case as well as the Mike Bossy collection.”
Neil Best first worked at Newsday in 1982, returned in 1985 after a detour to Alaska and has been here since, specializing in high schools, college basketball, the NFL and most recently sports media and business.
