Certificate from Green Bay Packers’ Inaugural Stock
Image by Heritage Auctions, HA.com
This 1923 Green Bay Packers Stock Certificate (estimate: $20,000+) represents five of 1,000 shares that were sold 94 years ago after owner Curly Lambeau used illegal players in 1921, prompting the American Professional Football League to revoke the team's charter, after which Lambeau reapplied as the team's sole owner.
Realizing how deeply woven into the fabric of the community the Packers were, Green Bay Press-Gazette publisher A.B. Turnbull assembled a group of five community leaders, who came to be known as "The Hungry Five,” to arrange a public stock offering in an effort to raise the money needed to salvage the financially wobbling franchise.
No other team in any of the four major sports played in the United States is publicly owned by community stockholders.
