A three-piece Jack Dempsey collection anchored by a rare complete ticket from one of the most controversial nights in boxing history. The second Tunney-Dempsey contest at Soldier Field, Chicago, September 22, 1927 — forever known as the "Long Count" fight, drew over 100,000 spectators and generated a gate that would not be surpassed for decades. Complete tickets from this bout, intact with stub, are genuinely scarce. This example is Section 1, Row 9, Seat 12, Gate O, R.S. Elevated, $40.00 total. The reverse carries an elaborate engraved portrait vignette of both fighters in olive-green guilloche an unusually handsome production for a sports ticket of the era.
The second piece connects directly to Getz and to Dempsey's earlier championship moment: a printed dinner card for the Getz-hosted pre-fight dinner at the Metropolitan Club, New York City, on the evening of September 14, 1923, before the Dempsey-Firpo bout at the Polo Grounds. The guest list on the reverse is extraordinary: Governor Alfred E. Smith of New York, former U.S. Senator William Alden Smith, Lord Birkenhead of London, and some sixty railroad presidents, coal executives, and corporate titans. Few documents so vividly capture how Dempsey's championship fights functioned as high-society events for the American establishment.
Rounding out the collection is a Bruno of Hollywood studio portrait of Dempsey in a dark suit, cigar in hand, inscribed in blue ballpoint: "To my pal Larry / thanks pal / for a swell job / Best always / Your friend / Jack Dempsey / 2-25-53." A warm personal signature on a handsome image.
With One of a Kind Collectibles LOA