TT’s first Olympic medal for sale
Friday, March 18 2016 (T&T Newsday)
T&T's 1st Olympic Medals on eBay This country’s first Olympic medal is up for sale on eBay. The 1952 Helsinki bronze medal, won by the late Rodney Wilkes in weightlifting, is part of a collection which includes medals at the 1947 World Weightlifting Championships (bronze), 1950 Central American and Caribbean Games (gold), 1951 Pan American Games and 1958 British Empire/Commonwealth Games, being auctioned off for the base price of US$28,000.
The “Rare Olympic Medal Collection of Trinidad and Tobago’s first Olympic Medallist Rodney Wilkes” went on sale yesterday but up to press time there were no bids.
The seller described Wilkes as “an icon, a sporting luminary, weightlifter par excellence and Trinidad and Tobago’s greatest weightlifter” and indicated that “these medals are all original and are in immaculate numismatic condition.” On the heels of the ANSA McAl group of companies purchasing the late union leader Adrian Cola Rienzi’s Order of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago (ORTT ) — the nation’s highest award — which also went on eBay recently for US$25,000, the seller urged persons from this country to also make a bid.
“It is highly hoped that there would be interested persons/entities in Trinidad & Tobago who would recognise the significance of having this collection remain in Trinidad & Tobago to continue building on the country’s (much previously-neglected) national heritage. Once acquired, these medals and the official Trinidad & Tobago jacket patches can be put on permanent display, where they can be readily viewed by a large flow of persons on a daily basis.” But in an interesting twist yesterday, Grace Wilkes, daughter of Rodney, has called for a cease and desist of the sale.
In a television interview last evening, Grace said the sale was totally unauthorised
