Ever since the 1979 season, when the Steelers won their fourth Super Bowl ring, Pittsburgh fans have been screaming for "One for the Thumb."

	Photo courtesy of Jostens The New England Patriots 2003 ring tells a story. Fifteen diamonds at the top represent the team's 15 straight victories, 12 at the base its undefeated home record. The ring's left side includes each player's name; the right has the game logo, its 32-29 score and 53-17-1 for the 53 players, 17 coaches and one owner. Click photo for larger image.

But few know that if the organization succeeds in reaching Jacksonville on Feb. 6 and capturing its fifth Super Bowl, it will be entitled to 150 rings.

That's how many the National Football League will buy for Super Bowl XXXIX's triumphant team, paying a base price of $5,000 per ring, plus adjustments for increases in gold and diamond prices as well as tax.

That's more than three-quarters of $1 million for Super Bowl bling.

Seems diamonds are a nose tackle's best friend, too.

"It's the crowning moment of an NFL player's career. They all understand how difficult it is to do," says Greg Aiello, vice president of public relations for the NFL, which actually has a Super Bowl Ring Committee.

The ring sub-section of the league's Game Operations Manual lays out maximum standards that sound strict -- e.g., the rings must be made of 10K plumb gold and weigh no more than 30 pennyweight. But in practice those are only guidelines that allow for a lot more "wow."

Diamonds, for instance, may be no better than SI quality and worth no more than 150 points (1.5 carats) for a first-time win within a 10-year period, with subsequent wins in that period qualifying for 20 additional points. But those limits have been blown out by recent rings, such as the New England Patriots' pair.

The rules are a bit esoteric, especially the subject of shanks. (Says Aiello, "I know what it means when a punter does it.")

In ring lingo, shanks are sides, one of which, the league decrees, will depict the Super Bowl (logo, score) and the other will be personalized (recipient's name, season synopsis, etc.).

A team can give rings to anyone it chooses, even the Gatorade girl, but it has to pay for any above the 150.

Who knew that the league also will buy the other team 150 pieces of jewelry ("a ring, a watch, a medal, etc.") costing up to half as much as the winners' rings? But then, who's ever wanted a Losing Team Award?

The Steelers four Super Bowl rings. Click photo for larger image. Try One On If you'd like to see what one of the Steelers rings looks like on you, then slip into the Super Bowl section of the Western Pennsylvania Sports Museum, Senator John Heinz Pittsburgh Regional History Center, Strip District. In one of many interactive exhibits, you can slide your hand under replicas of the tops of the rings that are mounted in clear plastic. Curator Anne Madarasz says that after the new museum got permission from the Steelers, ring makers Jostens and Balfour donated the replicas. During the Super Bowl in Jacksonville, Fla., a complete collection of all 38 Super Bowl rings can be seen -- at the World Golf Hall of Fame, of all places, in nearby St. Augustine -- as part of a "Crown Jewels of the Game" exhibit. The rings will be on display Jan. 21 through Feb. 13. You also can see all the rings, plus all the tickets, dates and scores of all XXXVIII Super Bowls, by going to the Web site, www.superbowl.com/history/rings. -- Bob Batz Jr.

Super Bowl rings are some of the world's rarest and most coveted jewelry, especially for digits sized in the double digits. A handful of companies hotly compete for the contract to design and make each year's ring and the attendant bragging rights. So much so, according to jewelry expert Fred Cuellar, that it's standard for them to create rings worth thousands more than the limits allow and eat the difference.

"But it's no big deal to us," says Cuellar, a k a "The Diamond Guy," who heads Houston-based Diamond Cutters International. He helped escalate the climb toward "Everest rings" -- highest priced ever -- by tossing Diamond Cutters International's hat into this ring for Super Bowl XXX.

Those X's, fans know, mark the last time the Steelers got into the Super Bowl, after the 1995 season. Cuellar remembers sending to Three Rivers Stadium a huge congratulatory cake. But being a Texas company, he also courted the Dallas Cowboys, and when Dallas won, the company won the right to make the team's rings, which literally starred five interlocking kite-shaped diamonds.

Cuellar recounts flamboyant team owner Jerry Jones saying, "I want a ring that people will look at and go, 'Omigod, it takes my breath away!' "

That bar just keeps being raised higher and higher. Look -- but put on your sunglasses first -- at the unprecedented 14K-white-gold gaudies the Patriots put on after 2001 and last season, each billed as the biggest ever.

The reigning 2003 ring, which owner Robert Kraft presented to the team at his house on June 13, weighs in at nearly a quarter pound (3.8 ounces or 69 pennyweight). That's thanks to 104 diamonds -- 5 carats plus. They don't just sparkle, but tell a story, starting with the marquis pair as two Lombardi Trophies inside the Gillette Stadium-shaped crest. Fifteen diamonds at the top represent the team's 15 straight victories, 12 at the base its undefeated home record, and 32 around the Pats' logo for all the NFL teams. The ring's left side includes each player's name and number and views of the stadium; the right has the game logo, its 32-29 score and 53-17-1 for the 53 players, 17 coaches and one owner.

That's a lot to squeeze on one finger, even if it is size 17¹/₂ (worn by now ex-Pat nose tackle Ted Washington).

Even if a company loses money on The Rings (and, Cuellar frankly says, the Patriots asked him to lose too much for him to take on the most recent contract), it can make plenty on ancillary products it gets licensed to sell. Companies are forbidden from selling replicas, but after Diamond Cutters International did the Denver Broncos' first ring, it sold different rings to season-ticket holders plus assorted other baubles.

	Former Steelers running back Rocky Bleier shows off his four Super Bowl rings in 1979. He once sold the four rings to a friend before bankruptcy and divorce proceedings. He later bought them back, however, three were stolen last summer. Click photo for larger image.

Diamond Cutters International still is a relative newcomer in this game, which has been dominated by the same companies who likely made your high school or college ring.

Minneapolis-based Jostens has made 25 of the 38 Super Bowl rings to date, from the humble first one for the 1966 Green Bay Packers (then costing less than $1,000 and designed in part by coach Vince Lombardi himself) to the Pats' latest (no one's saying specific cost, but appraised worth is $20,000-plus).

Jostens made three of the Steelers rings, the ones won for the 1974, '78 and '79 games. The other one, for '75, was made by Balfour (ArtCarved), now in Austin, Texas. Teams even have worked with New York's Tiffany & Co., which crafts the Lombardi Trophy.

These rarefied Rings of Mass Construction send ripple effects into the jewelry world. "Super Bowl rings really drive our technology development and our manufacturing process development," says Jostens spokesman Rich Stoebe.

Compared to the early rings, "It's crazy just how big they are" now, says Christina Gonzalez of Balfour, which also fits them on the sausage fingers inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. "But players these days are bigger than they were then."

She declines to give the specs on the Steelers Super Bowl X ring, and manufacturers generally are cautious, in part "because people try to knock these off" and sell them on the booming sports memorabilia market.

Real rings do become available more often than you might think, often for sad reasons that California collector and dealer Scott Welkowsky calls the "Triple Ds" -- divorce, drugs, death.

A ring from a big name like Joe Namath could be worth $100,000 or more. On eBay last month, a ring awarded to lesser known Lee Woodall of the San Francisco 49ers in 1995 was bid up to $61,900, $100 short of the reserve price. Its Cumberland County owner, a former business partner who got the ring in a default judgment against Woodall, pulled it off the Internet auction and sold it privately. Eric Garonzik says he can't say how much it fetched, "but I did get more than I wanted for it."

Several companies will bid to create this year's super ring, but they wouldn't think of huddling with any team yet.

"They would shoot you," says Cuellar. The reason: superstition. "It's considered the worst of omens" to talk about the ring ahead of time. That said, manufacturers have to start planning early.

Indeed, he says that even before the playoffs started, Diamond Cutters International started sketching out ideas for hot teams, including the 15-1 Steelers. "We already have designs for you guys." Of course he won't share but says of one scheme, "If you look at it you'll say, 'Omigod, that makes so much sense for five wins.' "

Jostens, too, has for more than a month been kicking around ideas for teams including Pittsburgh, even perusing the Post-Gazette for symbolic elements and themes appropriate for the "One for the Thumb," says Jostens director of sports marketing John Abel.

Players can sound even more hyperbolic when they talk about what it means to wear a Super Bowl ring. But fact is, only some 6,000 have been made, ever, and they can be very elusive. It's not unusual for players to prolong careers in hopes of one.

"They don't call it a championship. They don't call it a Super Bowl. They call it a ring," says retired Steelers public relations director Joe Gordon, who worked in the front office during the 1970s glory days. He has four Super Bowl rings, tucked away in a safety deposit box. He says he's always strongly believed that wearing the ring is an honor that should be reserved for players and coaches. Besides, he adds with a laugh, "On someone who's normal-sized like me, they kind of stand out."

Back in the day, he might take a ring out to dinner or to a party. "Man, it was really the topic of conservation. You would think it was the Hope Diamond when you would show it to someone."

With four, Pittsburgh ranks second behind Dallas and San Francisco, both of which have five rings.

It goes without saying that everybody in the Steelers organization would love a Super Bowl XXXIX ring, if only because, well, they aren't saying much about that. Spokesman Ron Wahl did confirm that no current player has earned a Super Bowl ring with any team.

Pittsburgh has to win Saturday's divisional playoff game, then the AFC championship, to get a shot at another ring. Until they win it, whenever that may be, fans will be singing that same refrain.

"One for the Thumb" actually is the title of a hot fan song this season, by Michael O'Brien, the refrain of which goes:

We're the Pittsburgh Steelers! We're number one!/
From "The Steel Curtain" to "The Tommy Gun"/
And now Big Ben's here -- so here we come/
We've got 1 2 3 4 -- now one for the thumb!

P.S. If the Steelers don't win it this time, don't blame this story. Countless signs, T-shirts and Steelers fans brought up the subject first.

---

Correction/Clarification: (Published Jan. 14, 2005)In the original version this story about Super Bowl rings, published Jan. 13, 2005, the last name of the Western Pennsylvania Sports Museum curator Anne Madarasz was misspelled.