Championship Sports Rings

Since the NFL football playoffs are about to start on Saturday and while 12 teams will vie for the Super Bowl 50 Championship this too will be the season for the Major Ring companies to battle to get the new Super Bowl Ring and Conference Ring contracts. They will too be competing to make the new Rings no matter who wins the Super Bowl. Jostens made last years New England Patriots Ring. As most of us know the company who has made or produced the majority of the Super Bowl and Conference Rings is Jostens. But did you know that for a period of Six straight years Jostens did not get to make the Super Bowl winners ring. From 1990 to 1995 the rings were made by either Balfour, Tiffany and Co, or Diamond Cutters.

The major Ring companies also compete to produce the NCAA National Championship Rings too. Last years Ohio State rings were made by Jostens. Out of the last 50 National Championship Rings produced Jostens has made only about half of them. The longest drought for Jostens would surprisingly be a full 10 Years where they did not produce the National Championship Ring starting in 1980 with the Georgia rings and ending with the 1989 Miami Rings. Jostens would rebound in 1990 as there was a split title and Jostens made both the Colorado and the Georgia Tech Rings.

A few days ago the New 2015 Duke National Championship Rings were given out to the players. To the surprise of prob a of of fans the design was NOT the same one that was relasesed 2 hours after they won the National Championship in April. I had posted the link to Jostens facebook page as soon as they released the mock up photo. It was similar to the 2010 Ring they had put out. I thought no way this would be the real or final design that the team would choose and I find it real funny that Jostens would post it just hours after the team won it all. What would be real funny would be if Jostens wanted to stick it to the bootleggers and cheap knock off makers so they would waste their time and money making this so called Duke ring and it wasnt even the real one the players would get 5 months later. One could believe that Jostens did it on purpose because they could have just posted a photo of a mock up of the top of the ring but they went as far to post the 2 sides of the ring too. As you all know the people who make fakes and copies will have to have clear photos of both sides of the ring as well as the top of the ring. No doubt when the fake copies came out less than 2 weeks after Duke won the title they prob sold a few rings till the real ones came out this week. No I bet those fakes will be even discounted even cheaper since they are not eevn copies of the real ring. Sadly in about 2 to 3 weeks you will start to see copies and fakes of the real 2015 Duke National Championship Rings. I would also guess that most of the fakes are ordered and not in stock. The only exceptions would be the Super Bowl Rings they prob make a ton of them as they are much more popular than college rings. In the end even though some china company took the time to make fake copies of the mock up 2015 ring months ago i doubt if they really loose too much money as they can pretty much crank them out as soon as the design is released.

Its a real shame that Jostens and the other ring companues dont put more pressure on ebay to pull these fakes as thats one of the things that are not allowed on ebay. But ebay hardly enforces it unless the ring companies complain. I know they have a place in the market placce but its cluttering up ebay way too much. Used to be cool to see real champiosnhip rings for sale now most of it are the cheap copies and fakes.

The New Duke National Championship Ring is based off the 2014 Wisconsin Final Four Ring also made by Jostens.

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For those who wondered how big the New Patriots Super Bowl Ring is here is a photo of it next to the Saints Super Bowl Ring.

From this shot of Tom Brady wearing all four of his rings the new 2014 ring looks a lot bigger than the 2003 Ring next to it.

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The moment most have been waiting for the New 2014 New England Super Bowl Ring.

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Here is a photo of the 3 Championship Rings that the University of Oregon players all got for going to the National Championship Game last year. The one on the left is for winning the Pac 12 Championship. The center ring is the NCAA College Playoff Ring for making to the Title Game. The ring on the right is for winning the 2015 Rose Bowl Game against FSU. Kind of bit surprised that they got 3 rings but it seems Oregon always got extra rings in other years when they have played for the title. The Pac 12 ring looks similar to the new Ohio State Big Ten Ring. The College Football Playoff Title Game ring looks similar to the new College Football playoff Ring that Ohio State got but it looks like Oregon was able to alter it a bit so it's not like the generic BCS Ring that all of the teams used to get every year. The Rose Bowl Ring is similar to the new Ohio State National Champs Ring all made by Jostens. it would seem that these 2 designs are what we will see in the near future out of Jostens.

How is this for a record!!! Duke wins the National Championship and already less than 2 hours later there is an image of what looks to be a legit image of what the National Champs ring could and would look like. Its close to the version of the 2010 ring and I doubt if they go with it but since Jostens posted it and it does look like a legit ring and its NOT the NCAA Championship ring that they will get too one has to wonder why Jostens would post this photo.

Since tonights the 2015 National Championship Game here is a photo of the Rings that each of the Final Four Teams will get. Its the NCAA Final Four Ring. Similar to the BCS National Champs Football Rings that the NCAA gave out from 2002 to 2013. Now they give out a NCAA College Playoff National Champs Football Ring starting with last years title. The 4 Final Four schools will still give out their own Rings as this ring is an extra bonus Ring. As a side note when the NCAA gave out these Final Four Rings the 3 teams that would not win it they would just put "NCAA Final Four" on the rings. The team that wins they would put "NCAA Champions" on it and for a while made it out of 10K gold and the 3 teams rings would not be gold. Now of course all 4 teams will get a non gold ring. Dont be surprised if the winner of tonights game their NCAA Ring that they get from the NCAA says "NCAA Champions" and not "NCAA Final Four"

I took this pic off of ESPN TV.

It's Ray Lewis SB XXXV MVP ring given to him by owner Steve Biscotti in 2014 when Ray retired and entered Raven's ROH. I guess after David Ortiz MVP ring these rings are becoming popular. Ray said he loves the ring and stopped wearing his SB rings, since this ring is unique, one of a kind.

This is a cool looking ring. Clearly a ring thats based off the 2003 New England Pats Super Bowl ring made by Jostens. It doesnt look at wide at the Pats ring but it could be the angle of the photo. A lot of colleges and high school teams are now using this popular 2003 Pats Ring design.

Here's a ring I haven't seen before. Last years Kansas basketball big 12 championship ring. The 10 on top stands for 10 straight conference championships. This thing looks huge!

That is one of the ugliest rings I've ever seen. Who designed?

This ring was made by Herff Jones. You may reconize the overall same design as its the same ring as the 2012 Alabama National Champs Ring made by Herff Jones too. Its also similar to the NY Giants last Super Bowl Ring made by Tiffany & Co. Not one of my favorite designs as I dont like rings that dont have words or text on the top of the rings.

Breaking this week is the news that Scott Norwoods 1990 and 1991 Buffalo Bills AFC Champs rings will be hitting the aution block. I was actually contacted by the person who must have bought the rings from Scott as I was offered the 2 rings a few months ago in an email but they never returned my email. I guess they were shopping them around and finally decided to have them auctioned off by one of the big auction houses. If you look closely the 1990 AFC Ring matches the 1990 Player ring I have as it was once pointed out that the original players rings might not have come out with all of the extra stones that surround the bigger center stone. The players ring I have is from one of the starters on the team that year so dont know for sure if the players chose to add the extra stones to the outer portion of the ring that year.

http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2015/02/10/scott-norwoods-afc-championship-rings-for-sale/

After watching both the NFC and AFC Championship Games today I am reminded every year "Why did the NFL change the Conference Trophies??" I believe about 3 or 4 years ago they updated the design of the AFC and NFC trophies and they are a freaking JOKE!!! What are they going to do next change the Lombardi trophy too?? In regards to Championship rings every year the winning team gets to choose the deign of the Ring but in cases of the NFL Hall of Fame ring the ring has changed designs about 4 times over the years. I can kind of understand them updating those but why for the Conference trophies?? Even some of the bowl games have changed the design of the trophy too. The old Rose Bowl trophy was real nice. Hate the new one. Speaking of the new trophies of course you cant use the old crystal ball and the BCS trophy anymore as it was a very nice and big trophy but the new College Football Playoff you have to make a new trophy I just dont like the design. If you want a good laugh take a look at what the WNBA gives out to the winners of the WNBA Championship. The World Series Trophy was even updated by TIffany and Company but i still like the old one that Balfour made for years. It was bigger and heavier and a lot nicer.

Even the MTV VMA award trophy got an update a few years ago. I think they might had done it for one year and went back with the old style after the one year where they had a designer redo it to give it a new hip look. I say if it aint broke dont fix it!!!

Here is a link that shows the old and new trophies and NO ONE likes the new ones so I am not the only one who hates them.

http://justson.blogspot.com/2011/01/new-afc-and-nfc-championship-trophies.html

I was hoping to see what Bob Kraft would have done in 2007 if the Pats would have held on to win the Super Bowl and thus the "perfect season" I imagine he would have had a real excuse to make a real Monster Ring because of the fact that they would have been the Only team at 19-0 and the fact they would have joined the 4 Super Bowl Win Club. So if they win it this year the ring still might be as large as it would have been in 2007 just because it might be Bradys last one so if they do win expect a very Large Ring. Prob the best reason to root for the Pats is just to see what the ring will look like.

Herff Jones did make the Heisman Trophy and the Heisman Ring. HJ lost the contract to make the statue a few years ago. I would guess that HJ prob doesnt make the Heisman Rings anymore since they dont make the Trophy. If you go to the Herff Jones website there is NO photos of the Trophy on their website. I was informed of this by a HJ rep who said that Jostens went crazy and threw crazy money at the Heisman people for the rights to make the trophy and prob the rings. HJ had to take off all of the images of the Trophy on their website and on their advertisements since they no longer make it. Its sad that they cant even say they made it the past 50 years or so and designed the origianl Heisaman rings. The idea of making the "Heisman Trophy" prob was something that Jostens just had to have so they could get other business by being the company who makes the iconic trophy. Much like the companies bragging that they made the Super Bowl Ring it gets high school kids to buy their class rings.

What I want to know is does Jostens simply make the exact same trophy as what Herff Jones did for all of those years and I am guessing they do. And on the ring does Jostens just copy the exact ring design and overall specs as you can clearly see its an original HJ created ring design or does the Jostens ring look slightly different. If one of the 2 is going to be different because of the different manufactre its going to be the ring. I doubt if the trophy is changed at all. This reminds me of the original MIT Rings.They have been making MIT rings for over 70 years and over 4 different ring companies have made the rings and most of the time the rings look the same but with the MIT rings the senior class has the ability to tweek or change the top and the sides of the ring a little. But the overall "Beaver" or "Brass Rat" as its called will always be on the top of the ring no matter who makes the ring.

I am not surprised that Jostens is creating the new College Football Playoff National Championship Ring. After all Jostens has been producing the Official BCS National Championship Ring since 2002. From 2002 to 2004 the overall size of the BCS White Gold Ring was the same but in 2005 the ring got a bit super sized and continued till the last one that was given out to FSU in 2013. The rings from 2007 to 2013 were not made of 10K White Gold. I would imagine that the 3 other teams who made it to the college football playoff will get a special ring called the "College Football Playoff Ring" much like Jostens makes now for the final 4 teams who get there. The winner of the National Championship for basketball gets a NCAA Champions Ring instead of the final four ring but they all look the same as they are given out by the NCAA so the top of the winners ring says NCAA Champions and the 3 that don’t win their rings just say Final Four on top.

The ring that the other 3 football teams will get for making it to the playoffs will prob look the same as the winners ring but it will prob just have CZ stones where it says National Champions this way they don’t have to make whole new design. The new College Football Playoff National Champs ring that was just released is overall the same typical design as the 2012 FSU ACC Champs Ring and others. Not a real drastic new design except for the center Football logo. I don’t see any place where the winning team can customize the ring as on the BCS Rings the winning team was only able to change the stone color on top from 2006 to 2013. I imagine you will see a few of these rings hit the market when the players get the rings in April/May of 2015.

Now for those of you know don’t know all 4 schools who make it to the playoffs will prob have separate rings designed for them by the schools. Since all of the 4 teams won their conference the 3 loosing teams will prob get their own school version of the conference title ring plus the bonus NCAA College Playoff Ring that will look similar to the winning ring. The National Championship Team will of course make their own school version of the National Championship Ring plus they will get this special NCAA College Playoff National Champs ring and in most cases they can get a 3^rd ring and they will usually give the players a conference ring. So this will certainly keep Jostens and the other ring makers busy considering that there are 39 official bowl games and nearly 80 different schools there will be lots of rings to be made from this 2014 College Football Season.

Since the discussion has moved to Roman Numerals for the super bowls and this is a forum regarding Championship Rings here is my personal view. As it relates to a certain super bowl its prob mostly mentioned with the Roman Numerals and even though if I thought about it I prob could figure out which ones they are by looking at the letters what I have a problem with is when selling rings I don’t ever use the roman numerals to signify a certain team or title. I ALWAYS prefer to call them by the year of the title season and I think most do too. So if someone tells me they are looking for a Super Bowl XXXVIII Ring I know that the roman numbers say 38 but off hand I can’t tell you which super bowl year it was. Now even if you tell me you want a super bowl 38 ring I have no clue what your talking about and would have to Google it to be sure. Now super bowl XX and XXX are easy ones at least to me and XXV is one I can’t forget as its super bowl 25 or the 25^th Super Bowl game and this was the one with my Buffalo Bills vs. the Giants played in Tampa during the Gulf War so it’s easy for me to recall that. Other than that I can’t recall instantly what super bowl you’re talking about if you give me just the roman numerals or even the number of the super bowl. I deal in rings so I always mention the team name and the year of the NFL season. So that if someone asked if I had Super Bowl XXXVIII ring I would rather they ask me if I have a 2003 New England Pats Super Bowl Ring instead. And by the way I own 3 of those rings. It’s a much better way to tell someone what you want or tell someone which ring you’re talking about. Now others might have a different way at looking at it.

Another example why I always mention a ring by the team name and season of the title or football season is if you’re say your want a National Championship Ring from the 84 Orange Bowl game you would be better off saying you want a Miami 1983 National Championship Ring instead. In the BCS era it made all kinds of people ask questions. A good example is the 2004 USC BCS Championship Ring on the side of the ring its says 2005 BCS Champions because the title game was played in January 2005 but it was from the 2004 Season. So it could be called the 2005 BCS Championship Ring but some might think you’re talking about the Texas Championship Ring as they won the National Championship in the 2005 Football season. So by saying the USC 2004 BCS Championship Ring even though ring says 2005 BCS it’s the best way to call the ring. As a side note those 2004 USC BCS Rings are now kind of a collectors item for other reason because USC was stripped of their 2004 BCS Title and is now vacant but the players who were given those rings never had to give them back so if they do still have their rings they now represent a title that they had to give back. Now some collectors ask for them but not many and I still regard the Regular or “School Ring” USC got in 2004 as the more desirable ring than the BCS Ring.

One more reason why you should always call a ring by the team name and football season year is that most of the super bowl rings have the Year of the football season on it NOT the year they won the super bowl on it. A good example would be the 5^th and last 49ers super bowl ring has 1994 on the top of the ring. It does have the super bowl XXIX logo on the side of the rings but it's NOT called the 1995 Super Bowl Ring as the 49ers won the January 1995 super bowl game. So if someone mentions the 1994 Super Bowl Ring most would think it’s the San Francisco ring even though the super bowl was won in January 1995.

_{Since the 2 Big XII Teams today got snubbed in the first College Football Playoff because the Big XII did not crown a true single Championship I thought I would let you all know it wasn’t always this way. The Big XII was formed in 1996 and from 1996 to 2010 they did have a Big XII Title Game. This photo I created of these player rings that I have in my personal collection represents the Championship Rings from the first 12 years of the Big XII. After teams left the Big XII leaving the conference with only 10 schools the conference stopped with the title game in 2011, I would guess the fallout of todays news the Big XII might try to add 2 more teams in the future as this was one of the main reasons why the conference stopped having a Title Game. Or I can see the conference once again have the Big XII Title Game next year even though they would have to determine a South and North division again. Experts say with 10 teams it makes having a title game a bit tough but I would guess the Big XII offices this week will be very busy with calls from angry fans, alumni and even teams wanting answers about the future of the Big XII Conference.}

From the 1970 New York Knicks Ring to 1983 Phily 76'ers Ring the NBA World Championship Ring looked like the same ring or nearly was the exact same ring made by the Balfour Ring company. So i am guessing that either the NBA Teams in those years were extremely lazy or Balfour had a contract with the winning NBA Team to produce nearly the exact same ring design for those 14 straight years. The 1984 Boston Celtics NBA Championship made by the same Balfour ring company was a totally differnet and unique design and ever since than the ring designs have all been different.

Here is a photo of the Brand New 2014 San Antonio Spurs NBA Championship Ring.

https://twitter.com/1200WOAI/status/527268725259776000/photo/1

No the 1988 49ers Super Bowl Ring was smaller than the 1988 AFC Champions Bengals Ring from the same season. Jostens made BOTH the 48ers ring and the Bengals ring too.

https://scontent-a-dfw.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xpa1/t1.0-9/7009_739908852710148_2024835603_n.jpg

I have had a few of these 1997 UCLA Pac 10 Championship Rings that were mentioned above. I had heard from one of the players I got my first one from that UCLA players got 2 rings. The first one was non gold and the players didn’t like them. They did get new ones a few months later. From what I was told by this UCLA player they got to keep both rings. When I bought his 1997 Pac 10 and 1998 Pac 10 Rings I wanted to make sure that I was buying both the 10K gold rings. The 1998 Pac 10 Ring is a bit disappointing as you can see it compared to the slightly larger 1997 Ring.

I still have the set of rings to this day. I found the first 1997 Pac 10 version on ebay a few years back and I downloaded the photos. From what I see it doesn’t look all that much smaller than the replacement ones. But it’s hard to tell in the photo I saw on ebay. Since that ring was on ebay I tend to believe that the players got to keep both rings unless this ring somehow didnt get sent back and made its way onto the resale market. Strange that this is the only 1997 Pac 10 non gold ring I have ever seen up for sale. It does surprise me that more of the non gold version haven't hit the market since they might have been given 2 but you never know.

By the way the UCLA Player who sold me his 1997 and 1998 rings was one of the many players involved in the handicap placard parking scandal at UCLA so it might explain why he wanted or needed to sell his rings.

1997 UCLA Pac 10 non gold First Version

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1997 UCLA Pac 10 10K Gold replacement version

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Another shot of the 1997 UCLA Pac 10 10K Gold Ring

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That player who listed that NDSU National Championship Ring was in contact with me duing the ebay listing. Its pretty funny that he would list the ring when he was still going to school but he only had a few months left so if he had not let his name show on ebay no one would have known. Sadly not his only mistake. He claimed in the listing and to me that the ring was 10K Gold and had real diamonds and that the ring was a size 7. ALL 3 of these claims were wrong. The ring like every other ring made today is not real 10K gold and very rarely do any rings presented today have real diamonds in them even though as late at 2001 some College Championship rings were issued out with real diamonds in them. But its safe to bet that NDSU did not have real stones in it. Lastly that ring was more than a size 7 Ring as if it was not even he would be able to wear it. Kind of not surprising that players have NO idea of what these rings are made of and what sizes they are but i have a feeling that most do know.

Good point the "BCS Ring" as we people in the hobby call it will be prob called something else next year as it wont be any BCS anymore. No doubt the NCAA along with Jostens will some way still make a bonus Ring to give the winning team it will be refered to as prob "the NCAA National Championship Ring" instead of the BCS Ring. The ring that the schools design and produces will still be called or refered to as the "School Ring"

By the way the NCAA giving out the bonus "BCS" Ring was basicly what the NCAA has done with the Final Four teams for years in which they would give out all of the teams of the Final Four a ring that looked the same. The winners ring would say NCAA CHAMPIONS. The others would say FINAL FOUR. They have changed the design of that ring at least 2 times over the years. The schools of course give out a "School Version" Ring too for winning the National Champiosnhip for basektball.

The NCAA BCS Ring started in 2002 with Ohio State and was the same size from 2002 to 2004. It has been made larger ever since 2005 with Texas. The black stone was used from 2002 to 2005. Starting in 2006 with Florida the winning team got to choose the color of the top stone.

Here is a video of the FSU Team getting their new Championship Rings.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LHDGk-mmCSU

Here is my personal opinion about the new Red Sox World Series Championship Ring. It’s a colorful ring that should please some. Some will like that they used the WS Trophy and the Red Sox Logo on top of the ring. One of my biggest concerns is that the Rings top doesn’t have that many diamonds on it and the ones that they have used are very small. They kind of went “Classy” as some would call it. I personally don’t think that Classy and Championship Rings go hand in hand. You go sometimes your whole career to win the big one and you want a Massive diamond covered ring no matter what. You can always wear your wedding ring every day or some other piece of jewelry every day. Most players don’t wear these rings very often and certainly not every day so why not make it huge and gaudy. It’s a Championship Ring. The super bowl rings as of late are being blown away by the Hockey Stanley Cup Rings. Outside of the 2003 Marlins Ring most World Series rings aren’t as huge and gaudy as rings from other sports.

One other thing that I personally don’t like on the new Red Sox Ring is I HATE the new World Series Trophy made by Tiffany and Co. Balfour used to make the Team trophy and it used to be HUGE and Heavy. The new one that Tiffany and Co. now makes for the teams is a big disappointment to me. Same goes for the new AFC and NFC Conference trophies. They say those were redesigned to make them more modern or hip but I can’t see them changing the Lombardi Trophy and if they do I imagine everyone will complain. Kind of like when the NCAA changed the song “One Shinny Moment” after the team wins it all they play that song. A few years ago the song was re-recorded and that lasted 1 or two years before they went back to the original version. The lesson learned here is not to mess with that works.

In a few months let’s hope the Seahawks get it right and produces a truly special Monster and Unique Ring and not just a field of diamonds with the Seahawks logo on it. Since Paul Allen owns the team they might just do that. Time will tell.