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Montgomery County, Maryland, resident Samu Qureshi, started collecting Washington NFL memorabilia when he was just 4 years old.
Now, the 58-year-old wants to sell his stuff for $5 million.
“It’s one of the largest private sports collections you will find anywhere. It’s very much like a museum,” Qureshi said. “I’ve bought entire collections from other large collectors who started before me.”
However, most people can afford the price tag.
“This is not store-bought stuff,” he said. “This is stuff that I’ve hunted at estate sales and flea markets and bought from individual players over the years.”
Qureshi’s museum contains thousands of items, including a 1983 NFC Championship ring, more than 50 team-signed footballs, hundreds of game-used jerseys and stadium seats from each of the three stadiums in which the team has played (Griffith Stadium, RFK Stadium and FedEx Field).
He even has cleats that were worn by Vince Lombardi when he coached the team in 1969. Qureshi wants to sell because it is a lot of work to keep and maintain all of that stuff.
“I don’t want to be dealing with this when I’m 80,” he said. “Just even physically dealing with it — most of it is very organized and put together but it’s such a vast collection.”
Qureshi had tried to get the team itself to buy his collection, but he hasn’t been successful.
“You could open the Washington Football Team Hall of Fame with this collection and that’s all you need,” he said. “I literally have probably 50 times what they have, or maybe 100 times what they have in terms of actual memorabilia.”
Qureshi said he only wants to sell the whole collection, not individual items.
Anyone interested in buying should send an email to vsgrissom@gmail.com.