Fan's Wayne Gretzky Collection Worth Millions in Online Auction

Shawn Chaulk isn’t your average Wayne Gretzky fan. He has been dubbed “The Wayne Gretzky of Wayne Gretzky Fans” and rightfully so. But now, Chaulk has decided to part with much of his collection in an online auction. Early estimates have Chaulk’s collection worth millions of dollars.

He has just about every piece of Wayne Gretzky memorabilia you could think of, most of which have touched the hands of The Great One at some point. Chaulk has more than 100 sticks that Gretzky used in games and the cheapest of those is estimated around $2,500. He owns seven pairs of Wayne Gretzky gloves and enough helmets, pucks, skates to fill an equipment bag. He has a entire room full of game-worn Gretzky jerseys.

“You love the game,” Chaulk told the Canadian Press. “You love the athletes, at a distance. At best, you get to attend an event and see them in person. Again, from a distance. And that’s as close as we get. This was all to help me get closer to the game.”

Chaulk’s collection was impressive enough to make Gretzky himself drop by to have a look. Chaulk took the NHL’s all-time scoring leader through his display, stopping along the way to chat about certain items.

“I’d tell him where the sticks came from and he’d smile and react accordingly,” Chaulk said. “And then, as we moved through the collection, he realized the magnitude of what I’d put together and it was just absolutely surreal to walk the collection from end to end and discuss the pieces with him.”

So why give it all up after more than a decade? It’s difficult to get insurance for sports memorabilia at the best of times, let alone a collection of this size and value. That’s part of it, but the constant chase for rare Gretzky items is nearing its end for Chaulk, mostly because, well, he has just about everything that he’s been looking for already.

Still, it’s not like he’s selling the farm – he plans to keep a couple favourite pieces, just for himself.