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Colts owner Jim Irsay was one of world's most avid collectors

Irsay, who died Wednesday at 65, was once offered more than $1 billion for his collection

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Jim Irsay owned the Colts for nearly three decades and delivered a Super Bowl title to Indianapolis in 2007. (Credit: Getty Images)

Longtime Indianapolis Colts owner Jim Irsay died Wednesday at the age of 65, the team announced.

Irsay was 12 when his father, Robert, bought the Los Angeles Rams for $12 million in 1972 and then promptly swapped ownership for the Baltimore Colts. Irsay inherited the team and became its sole owner in 1997 after his father's death.

While most will remember Irsay as the Colts owner over a period of nearly three decades, which included a Super Bowl victory in 2007, much of his legacy also lies in his extensive collection of guitars, sports memorabilia and historic items.

Irsay displays the 120-foot scroll upon which Jack Kerouac wrote "On the Road." (Credit: Getty Images)
Irsay displays the 120-foot scroll upon which Jack Kerouac wrote "On the Road." (Credit: Getty Images)

Both in terms of monetary value and cultural merit, Irsay’s collection might be the greatest ever assembled.

"I've been offered $1.15 billion for the collection in totality by someone in the Middle East," Irsay once told ESPN. "I turned it down because, to me, No. 1, it's priceless. And No. 2, I never started the collection for that reason, to look at it and say, 'Oh, this is going to be a great investment.'"

According to a 2022 interview with the New York Times, Irsay’s passion for collecting began in a familiar way: Flipping baseball cards.

After Irsay inherited the Colts, he began buying up big-ticket items for his collection, beginning with a $2.4 million purchase of the 120-foot scroll upon which Jack Kerouac is said to have scribbled the entire original draft of “On the Road” in three weeks.

A musician himself, Irsay owned one of the world's best guitar collections. (Credit: Getty Images)
A musician himself, Irsay owned one of the world's best guitar collections. (Credit: Getty Images)

Among the more than 1,000 items in Irsay’s collection, which has toured the United States in a traveling exhibition since 2021, is the guitar played by Kurt Cobain in the music video for “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” for which he paid $4.7 million in 2022 (the second-most expensive guitar ever sold); Muhammad Ali’s “Rumble in the Jungle” championship belt, which he bought for $6.18 million (the most expensive boxing-related item ever sold); and a pair of tickets to Ford’s Theater from the night of Abraham Lincoln’s assassination, which he bought for $262,500.

Irsay never sold any of the items in his collection.

“For me, I’d rather do this than be floating around on a $200 million yacht,” Irsay told the Times in 2022. “If I float on that, I’m going to say, ‘I’m bored. Why am I here? Like, what am I doing here?’”

Will Stern is a reporter and editor for cllct, the premier company for collectible culture.