In the cutthroat business of Pro Football scouting, there was arguably no more difficult of a time than during the mid-1960s when the two rival leagues of the National Football League and American Football League battled it out for players. Even when the merger was agreed upon the stakes were still high for teams of the two rival leagues. It wasn’t until the 1967 draft that both leagues would operate from the same pool. A pioneer in the scouting world, Lloyd Wells, was the first African-American scout and his ability to sign players for the Kansas City Chiefs and away from the rival NFL was a savvy hire by a pioneer in his own right – Chiefs’ owner Lamar Hunt. Wells was instrumental in signing players from historically black colleges and his list of signees included Hall of Famer Charlie Lanier, Bobby Bell, Buck Buchanan, Curley Culp, Emmitt Thomas and Otis Taylor.

                For the 1966 Kansas City Chiefs became the first AFL Champion to represent the league in the inaugural AFL-NFL World Championship Game (later referred to as Super Bowl I) after the AFL and NFL agreed to merge in June of 1966. The Chiefs capped off their 11-2-1 regular season by defeating the two-time defending AFL Champion Buffalo Bills in Buffalo by a 31-7 score. The Chiefs would end up losing to the Green Bay Packers in the Super Bowl I.

                Presented here is an extremely rare and historical Kansas City Chiefs AFL Champions 10K gold ring that was presented to Lloyd Wells. The ring’s center is a red stone with a vertical football that has a large diamond in the center of the raised football. Surrounding the red stone reads “19 KANSAS CITY CHIEFS 66 AFL CHAMPIONS”. The right shank has raised gold banners that have the score of the AFL Championship Game “KANSAS CITY 31 BUFFALO 7” and “1-1-67”. The AFL “A” logo with surrounding stars to additional gold banners are below that read “FIRST AFL-NFL” and “SUPER BOWL”. The left shank as a raised banner that reads “WELLS” and the Chiefs logo below. Below the Chiefs logo is a raised football that reads “SCOUT” and two banners that read “MATURITY” and “LEADERSHIP”. Engraved on the inside of this size 11 ring is “JOSTENS 10K”. This ring weighs 29.5 grams and is accompanied by a Jostens ring box and is in NM condition. A previous 1966 Kansas City Chiefs AFL Champions ring sold for $18,000 in August of 2017.

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