THE TROPHY COLLECTOR

On 20 March 1966, four months before the 1966 World Cup in England, the trophy was stolen during a public exhibition at Westminster Central Hall, and was famously recovered just seven days later in a London garden by a dog named Pickles.

As a security measure, The Football Association secretly manufactured a replica of the trophy for use in exhibitions rather than the original. This replica was used on subsequent occasions up until 1970 when the original trophy had to be handed back to FIFA. Since FIFA had explicitly denied the FA permission to create a replica, the replica also had to disappear from public view and was for many years kept under its creator's bed. This replica was eventually sold at an auction in 1997 for £254,500, when it was purchased by FIFA. The high auction price, ten times the reserve price of £20,000–£30,000, was led by speculation that the auctioned trophy was not the replica trophy but the original itself. Subsequent testing by FIFA, however, confirmed the auctioned trophy was indeed a replica and FIFA soon afterwards arranged for the replica to be lent for display at the English National Football Museum in Manchester.

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The Brazilian team won the tournament for the third time in 1970, allowing them to keep the real trophy in perpetuity, as had been stipulated by Jules Rimet in 1930. It was put on display at the Brazilian Football Confederation headquarters in Rio de Janeiro in a cabinet with a front of bullet-proof glass. On 19 December 1983, the wooden rear of the cabinet was pried open with a crowbar and the cup was stolen again. Four men were tried and convicted in absentia for the crime. The trophy has never been recovered. The Confederation commissioned a replica of their own, made by Eastman Kodak, using 1.8 kg (3.97 lb) of gold. This replica was presented to the Brazilian president in 1984. Source: Wikipedia