Peter Sagan is selling a US$21,000 commemorative medal
Are you the world’s biggest Peter Sagan fan? Do you have a small fortune burning a hole in your pocket? Well boy howdy, has Sagan himself got a deal for you.
For the low low price of just €17,687.64 (US$21,037 / AUA$28,700) you can be the proud owner of a limited edition Peter Sagan commemorative gold medal. With just 100 in circulation, this 185 g medal celebrates Sagan’s three consecutive road world titles: Richmond in 2015, Doha in 2016, and Bergen in 2017.
But you don’t just get the medal for your $21,000. Oh no. You also get a fancy box to store it in and a certificate of authenticity. But that’s not all: according to the medal’s website “The owner of this set will be invited to a personal meeting with Peter Sagan.”
That sounds cool and all, except that an Instagram post from Sagan himself suggests buyers won’t quite be getting the quality time with Sagan they might have been expecting. “An extra benefit is the meeting of all other owners that will be organised after the entire collection is sold.” That reads a lot more like 100 uber-wealthy memorabilia hunters in a room than one-on-one time with Sagan. Pass.
Let’s talk about Sagan’s Instagram post for a moment. At first blush it looks like someone’s hacked Sagan’s account. After all, it wouldn’t be the first time this year Sagan’s name and likeness has been used to promote questionable investments. And judging by the replies to Sagan’s post, other people came to the same conclusion. “This can’t be real”, wrote jonprawnman. “IG hacked?” asked kristof_verheyen.
I mean, take a look at the company Sagan has partnered with on this: “TrustWorthy Investment”. It’s not exactly a name that inspires the sort of confidence it was intended to. And the pixellated images in the post below? Hopefully the product itself is of higher quality.
But despite first impressions, it would seem the whole thing is actually above board. TrustWorthy Investments is an international investment firm based in Bratislava, Slovakia, that focuses on “the creation of assets in precious metals, numismatics [coins, banknotes and medals] and diamonds.”
And while most of us are hearing about this “opportunity” as a result of Sagan’s Instagram post today, the medal was actually first revealed back in April 2019 at a launch in Prague.
“It’s expensive and everyone probably knows why — because it’s golden,” Sagan apparently told a packed hall at the time. “It’s an honor for me — I’m very pleased. Being made of gold and honoring three gold medals from the World [Championships], it also has a certain symbolism. It’s nice for collectors too.”
The medal might be nice for collectors, but sales appear to have dried up. In April last year, 65 of the 100 pieces had already sold. Sagan’s Instagram post would suggest that only 15 have sold in the time since, with 20 still up for grabs.
I hope we can all agree there are much better things you could spend US$21,000 on than a gold medal celebrating someone being good at cycling. For instance, you could buy a whole fleet of perfectly serviceable bikes for yourself … or one and a bit Specialized Epic S-Works MTBs.
But hey, if you’ve got that sort of disposable income at your fingertips and a gold medal with Peter Sagan’s face on it is what you need in your life right now, more power to you.
Me personally? I won’t be investing at this time. Or, as Instagram user dshuckit put it so eloquently in a reply to Sagan, “I love you, but this ain’t it brother”.
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