By Diane Pucin, INQUIRER STAFF WRITER
TEXT: Joan Scholl was trying to find a copy place.
Instead, she found a
76-year-old solid gold rowing trophy that's been
missing for somewhere around 40
years.
And that begins the story of the Philadelphia
Challenge Cup, which was rowing's
version of tennis' Davis Cup or golf's Ryder
Cup or yachting's America's Cup until
it disappeared many years ago.
Scholl stumbled upon the Challenge Cup at I. Switt
Antiques in June. The 18-inch,
solid gold trophy had been missing since sometime
in the mid-1950s, by the best
accounts.
It was commissioned in 1920 by the arbiters of
amateur rowing on Boathouse
Row, the Schuylkill Navy, which raised $2,500
for the cup and presented it to
Olympic singles sculling champion John Kelly
Sr. Each year after that, the trophy
was to be presented to the world's best singles
sculler.
It was an in-your-face taunt by Philadelphia at
the hoity-toity Henley Regatta,
which considered Kelly too blue-collar to compete
in its prestigious regatta at
Henley-on-Thames in England.
Jack and Joan Scholl, rowers from way back, are
Philadelphians who moved to
Palm Desert, Calif., about 12 years ago. Back
in town for a family reunion, they
were looking for a copy shop, not an antique
store, when they made their
discovery.
``A Kinko's or something,'' Joan Scholl said.
``Then we walked past this antique
place.'' She likes to collect rowing memorabilia,
so she said to her husband: ``I
wonder if they have any old rowing medals.''
He told her to check. ``But, you know, you had
to ring the bell and have them let
you in,'' she said, ``so I almost didn't bother.
Except, something seemed to pull me
in.''
So she rang and went in.
``The man said he didn't get much of that stuff
anymore, and I said, `Oh, that's
disappointing,' '' Joan Scholl said. ``But then
he told me that he had a gold rowing
trophy on a shelf somewhere.''
Now, Scholl had rowed on the Schuylkill in the
1950s. She remembered the
Australian Mervyn Wood, rowing against John Kelly
Jr. on the Schuylkill for the
cup.
She knew the story of the Philadelphia Challenge
Cup, and she knew that it had
been missing for many years. She asked to see
this gold trophy.
It was pulled off of some back shelf, dusty and
not gleaming. When Scholl looked
at the front, it said Philadelphia Challenge
Cup. And on the back, it had the list of
winners. Scholl asked about purchasing the cup.
``The man told me he was looking for somewhere
between $25,000 or $30,000,''
she said. ``I couldn't exactly write a check
for that.''
Scholl left and called Clete Graham, who had done
research on the missing trophy
several years ago, and who is secretary of the
Schuylkill Navy today.
TESTING THE LEGAL WATERS
Now the Schuylkill Navy has filed a lawsuit in
Common Pleas Court against Joan
Switt Langbord and George Antoniak and I. Switt
Antiques asking for the cup
back.
When she answered the phone at I. Switt Antiques
on Friday, Switt Langbord said:
``I have no comment and will not speak about
this,'' then referred the caller to her
lawyer, David Glansberg.
Glansberg said he had no comment either, except
that ``the Schuylkill Navy will
have a hard time proving ownership of this cup.''
Maybe so. ``The records are hazy,'' said Joe Sweeney,
a rower and a member of
the Schuylkill Navy. ``Someone remembers the
last time it was seen was at the
Fairmount bar. Someone remembers that Bill Donovan,
who was Schuylkill Navy
commodore at the time, took it home. Someone
says it was in a vault at Bailey,
Banks & Biddle. It was never reported stolen,
or at least we can't find any police
reports.''
In his research, Graham came up with four theories
on the cup's disappearance.
One was that the cup disappeared during a race
in Philadelphia in 1962, a race that
included Vladimir Ivanov of the Soviet Union
- thus leading to nefarious thoughts of
some evil Soviet plot to abscond with it. Another
was that the cup disappeared in
1951, and that from that time pictures of it
were awarded to rowers. Another held
that the cup disappeared from the Bailey, Banks
& Biddle vault. And finally, that
some local rowing official made off with the
trophy.
IT WASN'T FOR KEEPS
But the winner never got to keep the cup, either.
Oh, no. The golden trophy was
kept in Philadelphia, guarded, polished, periodically
tidied up and, OK, maybe
taken to a Boathouse Row bar now and then.
Switt Langbord told the Philadelphia Daily News
that her shop has held the
Challenge Cup for more than 20 years, and that
she acquired it at an estate sale.
After the cup was rediscovered this summer, Graham,
who worked the Olympics
as an official, decided to revive a tradition.
On the day of the men's singles final at
the Olympics, he made a quick appearance on the
dock and handed gold-medal
winner Xeno Mueller of Switzerland a framed photo
of the Philadelphia Challenge
Cup.
Graham said that he hoped the cup would be repossessed
by the Schuylkill Navy,
and that Mueller's name, along with each Olympic
winner after 1956, would be
added.
The names engraved on the cup are those of Kelly,
who represented Vesper in
1920; Walter M. Hoover, from Undine Barge Club;
W.E. Garrett Gilmore of
Bachelors Barge Club; Paul Costello of Vesper;
Joseph Burk of Penn Athletic
Club; and international rowers Jack Beresford
of England; H.R. Pearce and Wood
of Australia; Charles Campbell of Canada; Gustav
Schafer of Germany; and Jurij
Tjukalov and Ivanov of the Soviet Union.
Ted Nash, an Olympic rower and now the Penn AC
coach, remembers Ivanov,
the great Russian sculler, rowing for the cup
on the Schuylkill.
``It was a very big deal in its day,'' Nash said. ``It was a beautiful cup.''