Rare Tom Brady Super Bowl family ring auctioned off for a record $344K

Patriots QB's ring, given to one of his friends/family members, was auctioned off to an anonymous buyer

The rarest of rare memorabilia items sold at an auction on Sunday, as someone pocketed a Tom Brady "friends and family" Super Bowl ring for a cool $344,927. 

The ring was sold by Goldin Auctions, according to Darren Rovell of ESPN, and both the buyer and seller are anonymous. 

Despite five Super Bowl victories with Bill Belichick and Tom Brady, it has been rare for Patriots Super Bowl rings to pop up on the open market. And this is the first ring tied to Brady that has surfaced since the quarterback started winning enough Super Bowls to fill up a full hand and force the Patriots to alter their stadium setup to accommodate their banners. 

"This is the first Brady award that has ever come to market," Goldin said in January when it was announced the ring would be sold. "He never lets things go and nobody from his inner circle has ever given up something like this."

The ring is not the same ring Brady and the Patriots players received for their Super Bowl LI victory over the Atlanta Falcons. The actual rings contain 283 diamonds -- a nod to the miraculous 28-3 comeback by the Pats over Atlanta -- whereas the family ring contains "only" 265 diamonds. The ring is also "about 10 percent smaller," according to Rovell, and comes with a letter of appraisal from Jostens, which made the ring. (Shoutout to Jostens.) 

But despite the smaller size, it still fetched a record number at the auction block. The $344,927 is by far the most a Super Bowl ring, including the originals, has ever sold for. The previous record for a Super Bowl ring was Lawrence Taylor's actual Super Bowl XXV ring, which sold for more than $230,000 in 2012. 

The only sports memorabilia item that has topped this Brady sale was when Mike Piazza's post-9/11 jersey fetched more than $365,000 in 2016, per Rovell, who notes the previous high dollar amount for a friends/family ring was a 2000 Lakers championship ring owned by Kobe Bryant's father that sold for $173,102.

So these are rare to begin with -- add in the lack of Patriots rings out on the auction market over the years, despite all the titles, and it shouldn't be surprising that a ring with the name "Brady" on it, which this ring had, would fetch such a large price. 

In fact, it has been more likely that you could find a Tom Brady Super Bowl JERSEY than a ring up to this point, with the actual jersey Brady wore in Super Bowl LI getting stolen by an international media member. It was later found in Mexico.

The ring itself is worth, just in terms of the jewelry value, $29,750. Brady's name value is makes it worth literally 10 times as much as the actual ring.