Tiffany & Co. has created the Vince Lombardi trophy since the first Super Bowl in 1967.
New York—Sports fans will gather around this Sunday for Super Bowl LVI.
The Los Angeles Rams and the Cincinnati Bengals will square off at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California, each team vying for the coveted title of Super Bowl champion.
Ahead of the big game, we’re taking a look at the Vince Lombardi Trophy and its interesting connection to the jewelry world.
Here are five things to know about this weekend’s top prize.
The trophy is crafted by iconic jeweler Tiffany & Co.
The Vince Lombardi trophy
The coveted Vince Lombardi Trophy has been designed by Tiffany & Co. since the first Super Bowl in 1967.
The Super Bowl trophies have been crafted in Tiffany’s hollowware workshop in Cumberland, Rhode Island.
The trophy is made of sterling silver and the top part is designed to look like a regulation-size football.
It weighs seven pounds and stands 22 inches tall.
The trophy is crafted in Tiffany’s hollowware workshop in Cumberland, Rhode Island.
It weighs seven pounds and stands 22 inches tall.
It takes about four months to make the trophy.
The trophy is a testament to Tiffany’s highly skilled artisans.
Its workers used a variety of techniques to create the trophy, including spinning, silversmithing, hand engraving and polishing.
The trophy is created over the course of four months and requires a total of 72 hours of labor, said Tiffany & Co.
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The trophy’s design has humble beginnings.
The design of the first Super Bowl trophy was sketched out on a napkin.
In 1966, Oscar Riedener, a former vice president at Tiffany & Co., sketched the basic design on a napkin during a meeting with then-NFL commissioner Pete Rozelle.
Riedener’s design featured a regulation-size football in the kicking position.
The finished design was meant to symbolize “the pinnacle of gridiron glory,” said Tiffany.
Tiffany and the trophy’s namesake share a hometown.
Tiffany & Co. was founded in New York in 1837 while Vince Lombardi, the trophy’s namesake, was born just a short distance away in the Sheepshead Bay neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York in 1913 to a family of Italian immigrants.
Lombardi began his career in New York, coaching at West Point and Fordham University and then starting his NFL career with the New York Giants.
He later went on to coach the Green Bay Packers in Wisconsin, leading the team to victory in the first two Super Bowls.
In 1970, Lombardi died at the age of 57 due to cancer and the trophy was renamed in his honor.
The Brooklyn native’s funeral was held at St. Patrick’s Cathedral on Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue, less than a mile away from Tiffany’s flagship store.
It’s not the only trophy designed by Tiffany & Co.
Though perhaps the most iconic, the Vince Lombardi Trophy is only one of many sports trophies designed by the jeweler.
Its holloware workshop creates more than 65 trophies each year, including five football trophies.
In 1959, eight years before the Super Bowl trophy, Tiffany designed a football trophy for the MacArthur Bowl, named in honor of General Douglas MacArthur. The trophy is still awarded annually to the best college football team.
As of 1991, starting with Super Bowl XXV, the jeweler has created the Pete Rozelle Super Bowl MVP Trophy, named after the former NFL commissioner. It was redesigned in 2012.
As of 2011, Tiffany also creates the George S. Halas Trophy for the National Football Conference and the Lamar Hunt Trophy for the American Football Conference.
