Buy Big Red

Rare Goods · Big Red Rebuild

Memorial Stadium is changing.

The stadium opened in 1923 as a memorial to Nebraskans who died in the First World War. The renovation keeps that memorial and replaces what is inside it. Rather than letting those pieces disappear, original seats, furnishings, signs and artifacts are being preserved and given the chance to find their next home.

Rows of removed stadium seats stacked and inventoried in the Rare Goods warehouse
Seats inventoried after removal. Each one is matched back to the section and row it came out of before it is cleaned.

Removal

Crews work the building through the 2026 Big Red Rebuild. The window is real and it is finite — once a piece leaves with the renovation rather than with the collection, there is no second chance at it.

Sixty-one lines were approved for removal: 3,284 seats from the suite level, and 1,262 other objects — troughs, doors, signage, the run-out tunnel gates, locker stalls. Some of it is repaired and resold as itself. Some of it is too far gone and gets recast into something smaller.

Condition

These are sixty-year-old objects taken out of a working building with power tools. Expect scratches, fading, and wear where feet and hands found the same spot for forty seasons.

We clean everything, finish any cut edges so they are safe to handle, and grade condition honestly on each entry. We do not repaint and we do not restore to new. The wear is most of what you are buying.

Some objects will not survive extraction. If one of them is yours, we will offer you the nearest equivalent — the same row where we can — at the price you paid, or refund you without being asked.

Authentication

Everything leaves with a certificate naming where in the building it came from — the section and row for a seat, the location for anything else. Objects are tagged before they are unbolted, not after they reach the warehouse, so the record is made at the point it is still verifiable.

The programme is officially licensed by the University of Nebraska–Lincoln. Nothing here is a reproduction.

Collection

Large objects are collected in Lincoln by appointment once removal finishes. A pair of seats weighs around seventy pounds and does not fit in a sedan — bring a truck or an estate car with the seats down.

Smaller pieces — plaques, pulls, hardware — ship anywhere in the United States. Each entry says which applies before you buy it.

Nothing here gets made again.