Wayne Gretzky's stick from 1988 Stanley Cup victory set to hit the auction block

A piece of hockey history is going up for auction.

Wayne Gretzky's game-used stick from the Edmonton Oilers' Stanley Cup-clinching victory over the Boston Bruins on May 26, 1988, will be offered through Sotheby's Sealed from Tuesday to July 25.

The memorabilia — which is estimated to rake in more than $500,000 US at auction — will also be on display at Sotheby's New York from Thursday to July 24.

The 1988 title was Gretzky's fourth Stanley Cup win and earned his second Conn Smythe Trophy as playoff MVP with 43 points [12 goals, 31 assists] through 19 post-season games.

"To have something like this is really remarkable," said Sotheby's Head of Streetwear and Modern Collectibles, Brahm Wachter.

"You're talking about really the greatest to ever grace the ice and you're talking about his last championship, which of course helped cement his name into the history books."

The estimate for the auction was based upon multiple factors.

"We looked at an auction that happened a little more than a year ago, might be a year-and-a-half or two years, where the jersey and the gloves from the 1988 Stanley Cup were sold," Wachter said.

"I think the gloves achieved something like $200,000, the jersey achieved $1.5 million. We figured that this would be somewhere in-between those two particularly because the market has actually gone up since that sale."

Sotheby's acquired the stick — which is dated by Gretzky himself — from a private collector who opted to sell it. The company had previously sold a Gretzky stick from his final NHL game for $140,000 in 2022.

"We look at tiny little details, whether there are scuff marks, unique marks, graining on the wood, we might look at a lot of different things," Wachter said.

"What we do is, we match the