The Georgia Tech team ring that once belonged to a longtime assistant coach and went up for auction was sold Friday night for $7,590. The winning bid was slightly more than 25 times the original bid price of $300.
The ring was given to members of the Yellow Jackets’ 1951 team that went 11-0-1, won the SEC and defeated Baylor in the Orange Bowl. It was reported incorrectly in previous articles that it was a ring from the 1952 season.
Bidding for the ring heated up in the final hours and days of the bidding. It was $701 as late as Tuesday morning, increased to $3,218 by the end of Thursday and more than doubled in the auction’s final day on the website of Lelands auction house.
The ring was originally given to late Tech assistant coach Lewis Woodruff, who coached the Jackets from 1947-67. His son, Lewis Woodruff Jr., of Lawrenceville, said his family believed that the ring was taken in a home robbery when the younger Woodruff, 61, was a toddler. While the Woodruff family was not able to produce any documentation to prove it had been stolen, the auction house offered a portion of the ring’s sale.
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