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Six Super Bowls, more than anybody. And for the first thirty-nine seasons of this franchise's existence it did not win a single playoff game.
That is the whole shape of it. Founded in 1933, one postseason appearance in thirty-nine years and a 21-0 loss in it, and then in the fortieth season a pass bounced off somebody in the last twenty-two seconds and Franco Harris caught it at his shoetops. Four championships in six years followed. Then twenty-six years. Then two more.
Which is a useful way to shop, because it means almost everything worth buying attaches to one of six afternoons rather than to a logo. And this is a club that has officially retired exactly three numbers in ninety-three years, so the men everybody remembers are honoured by nobody wearing their number rather than by a ceremony.
Start with the towel. It costs fifteen dollars, Myron Cope gave the trademark away to a charity in 1996 and kept nothing, and it has raised over nine and a half million dollars since. Five of the twenty-three items here are under fifty dollars, which is honestly all the catalogue supports, and below that line the towel is the answer.
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Myron Cope's Official Terrible Towel
Best under $20Pierogies Plus, One Dozen
Best splurgeBradshaw Signed 1979 Super Bowl Ticket
Best experienceRavens at Steelers, December 20
Six Super Bowls, and Thirty-Nine Years of Nothing First
Every championship this franchise has won, and what to buy the fan who can tell you what happened in each one. Tap a number.
Tap a number to see what to buy the fan who knows the story.
Start Here
One item, fifteen dollars, and it is genuinely the best gift on this page. If you stop reading now you will still have done well.
Myron Cope's Official The Terrible Towel, Gold
Fifteen dollars, and it is the best gift on this page. Not the best cheap gift. The best gift.
Myron Cope invented it under pressure in 1975 because his radio station wanted a gimmick, and it debuted on December 27 that year in a playoff game against Baltimore. It is generally credited as the first rally towel in sports, which means every waved towel in every arena anywhere descends from this one.
Then in 1996 he signed the trademark away completely. He gave it to the Allegheny Valley School, now Merakey AVS, where his son Danny lived. He kept nothing.
The charity states it has realised over $9.5 million from officially licensed Terrible Towel products since then, funding services for more than 650 people across 120 programmes in nine Pennsylvania counties. Buying the licensed one is the difference between a souvenir and a donation.
Counterfeits are everywhere and only licensed sales send money to the charity. The genuine article says Myron Cope's Official on it. The team store carries something like ninety-two Terrible Towel variants at this point, but the plain gold original is the one with the whole story attached, and the charitable line is buried on the product page rather than advertised.
The Ones With a Signature
Eight signed pieces from a hundred and thirty dollars to thirteen hundred, including an actual ticket from January 1979 and a helmet inscribed by a man with a Purple Heart.
Terry Bradshaw Signed Ticket from January 21, 1979, Inscribed SB XIII MVP, Beckett Witnessed 10
This is an actual ticket from Super Bowl XIII. Not a replica, not a commemorative. Paper that went through a turnstile at the Orange Bowl on January 21, 1979.
Bradshaw went 17 of 30 for 318 yards and four touchdowns that afternoon, then a Super Bowl record, and 253 of those yards came in the first half alone.
The week before, Cowboys linebacker Thomas Henderson had told reporters Bradshaw could not spell cat if you spotted him the C and the A. Bradshaw's answer afterward: ask if he can spell M-V-P.
It is also the Jackie Smith game. The Dallas tight end dropped a wide open throw in the end zone in the third quarter, Dallas took a field goal instead, and they lost by four.
One thing to be precise about: the 10 is the grade on the autograph, not on the ticket. This is forty-seven year old paper and it is fragile. Beckett Witnessed means the signature was watched being applied and then independently graded, which is the strictest tier available. Flagged Almost Gone, so verify stock before you commit, and signed items are final sale.
Terry Bradshaw Signed Black Mitchell & Ness Authentic Jersey, Inscribed HOF 89
Four rings, and he is the only quarterback ever to win Super Bowl MVP in consecutive years, in XIII and XIV.
The Steelers got him with the first overall pick in 1970, and they got that pick by winning a coin flip with Chicago. Both teams had finished 1-13.
It did not start well. He was benched more than once early, for Terry Hanratty and then for Joe Gilliam, and Gilliam actually opened the 1974 season as the starter before Chuck Noll switched back.
Number 12 has not been issued since he retired and has never been officially retired, which is true of almost every great Steeler. The club has formally retired exactly three numbers in ninety-three years.
The listing does not show a size selector and reviews say it runs slightly small, which matters because signed apparel is almost universally final sale with no exchanges. Confirm the size before ordering. Individually numbered hologram, verifiable online. If you are choosing between this and the Bettis jersey below, pick one rather than both.
Jerome Bettis Signed White Super Bowl XL Authentic Mitchell & Ness Jersey, Inscribed HOF 15
Super Bowl XL was played in Detroit, which is where Bettis is from, and he announced his retirement on the podium minutes after it ended. He is the only player to finish a Hall of Fame career with a Super Bowl win in his own city.
He nearly did not get there. In the divisional round at Indianapolis he fumbled at the two yard line with 1:20 left, and Ben Roethlisberger made an open field tackle on Nick Harper to save the season. Bettis has said he thought his career had just ended on that play.
That team was the sixth seed, the first ever to win a Super Bowl, and it won three straight road playoff games to get there.
He arrived in a 1996 draft day trade after starting out as a Rams first round pick, and finished with 13,662 rushing yards, sixth all time when he retired.
This is the highest sizing risk in the guide. There is no visible size selector on the page and reviews say the fit runs small, and signed apparel is final sale, so a wrong size is simply a wrong purchase. Ask before you buy. Individually numbered hologram, verifiable online.
Jack Ham Signed Riddell 1963-1976 Throwback Speed Authentic Helmet, Inscribed HOF 88
The 1963 to 1976 shell is the specific reason to buy this one rather than a modern signed helmet at the same price. It is the helmet the Steelers wore for the Immaculate Reception and for the first two Super Bowls. It is the shell in the photograph.
Ham finished with 53 interceptions and 21 fumble recoveries, which is the most combined takeaways of any linebacker in the Hall of Fame.
He only got a scholarship to Penn State because another recruit backed out, and he went in the second round in 1971.
He started alongside Jack Lambert and Andy Russell, which is the only linebacker corps in NFL history with three All-Pros starting at once. Number 59 has never been officially retired.
Speed Authentic means a full size on-field-spec shell that Ham signed, not a game worn or game issued helmet. Nothing on the page claims otherwise, but the word authentic invites the misread and it is worth being clear when you hand it over. No display case included, and signed memorabilia at this price is normally final sale.
Rocky Bleier Signed Camo Mini Helmet Inscribed Purple Heart, Beckett Witnessed
Rocky Bleier was drafted by the Steelers in 1968 and drafted by the Army that December. He was wounded in a rice paddy ambush at Hiep Duc on August 20, 1969: a rifle round through the left thigh, then a grenade that shredded his right foot and lower leg.
He came home with a Bronze Star and a Purple Heart, and doctors in Tokyo told him he would never play football again.
He rejoined the Steelers at camp in 1970, spent that season on injured reserve, made special teams in 1971, and in 1976 rushed for over a thousand yards in the same backfield as Franco Harris. Only the second pair of teammates in NFL history to do it.
Four Super Bowl rings. He is the only man who won all four of them having been told, in a hospital, that he would not walk properly again.
One practical note: this links to Bleier's full collection page rather than the product page, because the direct product link would not resolve reliably and I would rather send you somewhere that works. Look for the camo mini helmet with the Purple Heart inscription at $363.99. Beckett Witnessed means the signature was observed being applied. Flagged Almost Gone, and signed items are final sale.
Jack Lambert Signed Riddell Speed Mini Helmet, Inscribed HOF 90
Lambert came out of the 1974 draft, forty-sixth overall in the second round. That draft also produced Lynn Swann, John Stallworth and Mike Webster, plus undrafted free agent Donnie Shell.
Five Hall of Famers from one intake. No other class in NFL history comes close. Dallas in 1964 and Green Bay in 1958 each produced three.
He was Defensive Rookie of the Year in 1974 at roughly 204 pounds, which was undersized for a middle linebacker even in 1974. Chuck Noll played him anyway.
The missing front teeth, which are most of the reason people remember his face, came from a high school basketball injury rather than from football.
Mini helmet at roughly five and a half inches, not full size, and the display case is a separate purchase at around fifty dollars. Number 58 has not been reissued since he retired in 1984 and has still never been officially retired. Signed items are typically final sale.
James Harrison Signed 16 by 20 Super Bowl XLIII Pick Six Photograph
Last play of the first half, eighteen seconds on the clock, Arizona at the goal line about to take the lead. Harrison intercepted it and went a hundred yards the other way. Pittsburgh went into the locker room up 17-7 instead of down.
That is a fourteen point swing on one snap, and it is the largest single play swing in Super Bowl history. At the time it was also the longest play in Super Bowl history.
The Steelers cut him three separate times. He also went to NFL Europe and got cut by Baltimore. He was undrafted out of Kent State in 2002.
In 2008 he was AP Defensive Player of the Year, the first undrafted player ever to win it. Kent State also produced Jack Lambert, which means two of the best linebackers this franchise has had came out of the same mid-major.
Unframed, so budget for framing on top if it is going on a wall. There is a second, more expensive version of nearly the same photograph carrying a 100 YD SB INT TD inscription at a higher price, so make sure the link and the price you are looking at describe the same object. Individually numbered hologram, verifiable online.
Hines Ward Signed 16 by 20 Super Bowl XL Catch Photograph
The cheapest genuinely signed piece in the guide, and it is attached to a Super Bowl MVP performance: five catches, 123 yards and a touchdown in XL.
The touchdown is the strange part. It was thrown to him by Antwaan Randle El, a wide receiver, on a reverse pass. It remains the first touchdown pass thrown by a wide receiver in Super Bowl history, and Ward caught it and won MVP.
He was born in Seoul to a Korean mother and an African American father, and is the first Korean American named Super Bowl MVP.
He fell to the third round in 1998 partly because a physical found he had no ACL in his left knee. He had been playing without one since childhood. He finished with a thousand career receptions.
Unframed at this price, and the framed versions on the same site run two hundred dollars and up. Genuinely hand signed with an individually numbered tamper-evident hologram you can verify online, which is worth stating because two other items in this guide are commemoratives rather than autographs. Number 86 is out of circulation and, like almost everything here, never formally retired.
Wearing It
Three jerseys across three price tiers, a sweatshirt that could not exist for any other team, and a suede jacket at sixty percent off.
Joe Greene 1975 Black Authentic Jersey by Mitchell & Ness
Number 75 is one of only three numbers the Steelers have ever officially retired, on November 2, 2014, fifty years after the first one.
He was Chuck Noll's first ever draft pick, fourth overall in 1969, and Pittsburgh reacted badly. The local headline was essentially Joe Who.
1975 is the year to pick because that is the Steel Curtain at full strength, on the way to Super Bowl X. The name itself came from a WTAE radio listener contest in 1971, won in a drawing by a ninth grader called Gregory Kronz.
His three linemates, L.C. Greenwood, Ernie Holmes and Dwight White, were all found by scout Bill Nunn, a former Pittsburgh Courier sports editor who scouted HBCUs and small Southern colleges that other NFL teams simply ignored. Nunn also brought in Stallworth, Mel Blount and Donnie Shell.
This is the Authentic tier, built to on-field spec, which is the most expensive of the three Mitchell & Ness cuts and the one that runs athletic and fitted. Most buyers size up. There is also a 1976 Legacy version of the same player at around $175 on the same site, which is a different jersey at a different price, so check which one you are looking at.
Men's Franco Harris Black Legacy Replica Jersey by Mitchell & Ness
Number 32 is one of three numbers this franchise has officially retired, and the ceremony was December 24, 2022, at halftime of a Raiders game, on the fiftieth anniversary weekend of the Immaculate Reception, against the same opponent.
Franco died four days before it. December 20, 2022. He had given his last interview hours earlier, talking about how much he was looking forward to the ceremony.
Super Bowl IX MVP with 158 yards on 34 carries, and he was the first African American and the first Italian American ever named Super Bowl MVP. Career: 12,120 rushing yards and 91 rushing touchdowns.
His fan club was called Franco's Italian Army and it made Frank Sinatra an honorary Brigadier General. Sinatra actually turned up.
Legacy Replica is the mid tier; the Authentic runs around $300 and is cut differently. There are also Big and Tall variants and a white version at similar prices, so four near-identical Franco listings exist and you want the right one. Worth knowing: every signed Franco item I could find is out of stock everywhere, which is what happens when supply is finite and the player is gone.
Men's Terry Bradshaw Black 1976 Legacy Player Jersey by Mitchell & Ness
1976 is a deliberate and slightly perverse year to put on a jersey, because they did not win anything.
Over the last nine games of that season the defense gave up 3.1 points per game, posted five shutouts and allowed two touchdowns in total. It is arguably the best stretch of defense any team has ever played.
And then Franco Harris and Rocky Bleier were both hurt for the AFC Championship, and Pittsburgh lost it. The best defense in the history of the sport did not get a ring for it.
Bradshaw is still the only quarterback to win Super Bowl MVP in back to back years, and the Steelers only had the first overall pick in 1970 because they won a coin flip with Chicago after both teams went 1-13.
Legacy is the mid tier, not the on-field Authentic cut, which is a separate listing at around $325. The $120 is a live markdown that will expire. Mitchell & Ness reproductions of seventies cuts run boxy and short in the body, so the usual advice is to size up for length rather than width.
Mac Miller x Pittsburgh Steelers Blue Slide Park Sweatshirt
Blue Slide Park is a real place. It is a playground in Frick Park in Squirrel Hill with an actual blue slide, and Mac Miller grew up near it.
The album named after it, released in 2011, was the first independently distributed debut to top the Billboard 200 since 1995.
The product copy references free shows at the Shadow Lounge, an East Liberty venue that has since closed, where he played as a teenager.
He died in September 2018 and this is a licensed estate collaboration rather than a bootleg, which is why it exists at Mitchell & Ness and nowhere else. There is no equivalent of this for any other team in the league.
This is the least generic item in the guide by a distance and it is also the one most likely to sell out, because the size run stops at 3XL where most Mitchell & Ness fleece goes to 5XL, which usually indicates a short production. It is a Pittsburgh gift more than a Steelers gift, which for a lot of people is the better one.
Women's Tan and Cream Varsity Full-Snap Jacket by Mitchell & Ness
Sixty percent off a jacket with real suede panels on it, which is the entire reason it is here at ninety dollars rather than two hundred and twenty five.
The tan and cream is not a fashion invention either. It draws on the 1933 to 1962 era, before the club standardised on black and gold and before there was a logo on the helmet at all.
That logo is its own good fact. The Steelers did not put one on until 1962, and then only on one side, because equipment manager Jack Hart did not want to do both. It stayed that way permanently and Pittsburgh is still the only NFL team with a one-sided helmet logo.
Cut for a woman rather than being a men's jacket in a smaller size, with contrast sleeves, embroidered graphics and rib-knit trims.
The sixty percent markdown is the whole value proposition and it will not last. Also, suede means no machine wash: spot clean or dry clean only, and the product page does not make that obvious. Sizes run XS to 2XL with no plus range.
Super Bowl XLIII Champions Lux Pro Pinch Snapback Hat by Mitchell & Ness
Super Bowl XLIII is the one that put Pittsburgh on six, passing Dallas and San Francisco. Nobody has caught them since.
Two plays bookend it and both are in this guide. Harrison's hundred yard interception return with eighteen seconds left in the first half, and Santonio Holmes' toe-tap in the corner with thirty-five seconds left in the game.
Holmes on the catch afterward: my feet never left the ground.
Forty dollars, one size, adjustable, which makes it one of the only things on this page you can buy for somebody without knowing anything about their measurements.
Snapbacks fit large and there is no size selector, so there is no wrong-size risk and also no small option. If the recipient prefers a fitted cap this is the wrong silhouette. The flat pinch front is a specific look and not everybody wears it.
For the Kid, and On the Shelf
A number nobody has worn since 2014, the ball from the Lynn Swann game, and the helmet from the year they were called something else.
Youth Troy Polamalu Black 2005 Gridiron Classics Legacy Jersey by Mitchell & Ness
The 2005 season this references ended in Super Bowl XL, which was Polamalu's first ring, in his third year.
Number 43 has not been worn by a Steeler since he retired, and like almost every number here it has never been formally retired.
He insured his hair for a million dollars through a shampoo company in 2010. It had not been cut since 2000.
The Steelers traded up eleven spots in the first round in 2003 to draft him, from twenty-seven to sixteen. This is a franchise that essentially never trades up, which tells you what they thought they were getting.
Buy this from the NFL Shop listing rather than searching Fanatics for it, because the identical jersey on Fanatics serves images from a host that has broken on us before. The $82.49 is a live markdown that will expire, and youth Mitchell & Ness runs true to size but narrow through the shoulders.
Super Bowl X Commemorative Wilson Football
Super Bowl X is the Lynn Swann game: four catches, 161 yards, a 53-yard grab that is still one of the two or three most reproduced images in the sport, and the first Super Bowl MVP ever given to a wide receiver.
He had been hospitalised with a concussion after the AFC Championship two weeks earlier and spent the whole build-up publicly unsure whether he would play. Cowboys safety Cliff Harris told reporters he intended to find out.
Kicker Roy Gerela missed from 36 and 33 yards and Pittsburgh won anyway, 21-17, on Glen Edwards intercepting Staubach in the end zone with three seconds left off a Mike Wagner tip.
It was the Steelers' second championship in thirteen months, after thirty-nine seasons without a single playoff win.
Read this one carefully. The product name says Official Game Football and it is not a game used ball. It is an officially licensed Wilson commemorative of the game, and nothing on the listing claims otherwise, but the name genuinely invites the misread and at $189.99 it obviously is not an artifact. Flagged Almost Gone, so verify stock.
1933 Throwback Speed Mini Helmet by Riddell
The 1933 throwback points at the founding season, when this team was called the Pittsburgh Pirates. The name did not change to Steelers until 1940.
Art Rooney bought the franchise that year for $2,500, after Pennsylvania repealed the blue laws that had banned Sunday sport.
The story that he funded it with racetrack winnings is backwards, and the real version is better. He bought the club first. The legendary killing at Saratoga, worth something like $160,000 off a tip from Giants owner Tim Mara, came three years later in 1936, and it is what kept the team alive through 1941.
This is the actual on-field alternate shell rather than a fantasy colourway. The Steelers wore it in games.
Display only at around five and a half inches, and it will not fit a child's head. One practical warning: the store surfaces four nearly identical Steelers mini helmets at the same price, so make sure the one in the basket is the 1933 throwback rather than the standard shell.
Read It, Eat It
The book written the year before it all worked, and three things from Pittsburgh that actually ship.
About Three Bricks Shy and the Load Filled Up by Roy Blount Jr.
Blount embedded with the 1973 Steelers for an entire season. Locker room, team buses, players' houses. The year before the dynasty started.
Which means the original 1974 edition ends with the team having won absolutely nothing, and that is what makes it a better book than a victory lap. He was writing about people who did not yet know what was coming.
This 2004 University of Pittsburgh Press edition is the thirtieth anniversary reissue, with added chapters covering the four Super Bowls that happened after the original went to press.
Sports Illustrated put it on its list of the hundred best sports books ever written. The title is a Pittsburgh idiom for somebody not quite all there, which Blount applies affectionately to more or less everyone in the organisation.
Two other editions circulate under the shorter title About Three Bricks Shy of a Load with different ISBNs and page counts, and they are materially different books. The one you want is ISBN 9780822958345. Bookshop fulfils through Ingram, so allow five to ten business days and expect no expedited option.
Potato and Cheddar Pierogies, One Dozen, by Pierogies Plus
Pierogies Plus operates out of a converted gas station at 342 Island Avenue in McKees Rocks, a Polish neighbourhood about four miles from the stadium.
They make the order by hand the day before it ships. Nothing sits in a freezer waiting for somebody to buy it.
The catalogue runs to fifty-seven items, including stuffed cabbage, haluski, crab cakes and, genuinely, DVDs.
Sixteen dollars for a dozen handmade pierogies from an actual Pittsburgh neighbourhood is the second best value on this page, behind only the towel.
Be straight with whoever you send this to. They ship one day a week, and shipping cost, order minimums, packaging and geographic limits are not published anywhere on the site, so you have to call or email to find out. It is a small operation and they say so plainly. This is the only genuine Pittsburgh pierogi source that ships at all: Goldbelly does not carry one, and its pierogi category is dominated by a chef from Cleveland, which is not a mistake you want to make in this particular guide.
Burnt Almond Torte by Prantl's Bakery
Yellow sponge, custard, buttercream, and the whole thing coated in toasted sugared almonds. The burnt refers to the almonds, not the cake.
The Huffington Post once called it the best cake America has ever made, which is the line that took a neighbourhood bakery national and which Prantl's has understandably never stopped quoting.
For a very large share of people who grew up in Pittsburgh, this is simply what a birthday tastes like. It occupies the position tres leches holds in Miami.
Made to order and frozen immediately rather than pulled off a shelf.
It ships frozen and Goldbelly says outright that it may partially or fully thaw in transit, which is normal rather than a fault. Seven days in a fridge on arrival, six months in a freezer. Perishable food is non-returnable, and somebody needs to be there when it lands.
Sandwich Pack by Primanti Bros, Choose Your Meat
The fries and the coleslaw go inside the sandwich, not next to it, and that is not a gimmick. It comes from Depression-era truckers in the Strip District who needed to eat one-handed while driving, so the entire meal was engineered into the bread.
The slaw is vinegar based rather than mayonnaise, and it was chosen that way because it would not spoil in an unrefrigerated truck.
Primanti's opened in the Strip District in 1933, which is the same year Art Rooney bought the football team. The sandwich and the franchise are exactly the same age.
You choose pastrami, corned beef, capicola or Genoa salami at checkout. It serves four and arrives with bread, cheese, twenty-five ounces of fries, slaw, tomatoes and Red Devil hot sauce.
This is a kit rather than delivered sandwiches, and the listing name makes that easy to misread: you assemble them yourself. It ships with ice packs rather than dry ice and Goldbelly states items may thaw in transit. Bread at room temperature on arrival, everything else refrigerated. The meat is a selector, so confirm the price against the choice before ordering.
December 20
Baltimore, at one o'clock, on the anniversary of the day Franco died.
Ravens at Steelers, Sunday, December 20, 2026 at Acrisure Stadium
Sunday, December 20, one o'clock, against Baltimore. Of the eight games actually played at Acrisure this year, this is the one to hand somebody.
December 20 is the anniversary of Franco Harris's death, and the anniversary of the Immaculate Reception falls three days later. Pittsburgh marks both.
It is also very probably Aaron Rodgers' last home game, in Mike McCarthy's first season, which is the first year this franchise has had without Mike Tomlin since 2006. He stepped down in January after nineteen seasons.
The cheapest pair was showing at about $138 a seat with fees included, with the upper bands running past $400. It is a December division game against the Ravens, so it will not get cheaper.
One trap worth flagging: the Steelers have nine designated home games this season but only eight of them are at Acrisure. The Week 7 game against New Orleans is being played in Paris. Do not buy that one for somebody expecting Pittsburgh. StubHub shows all-in pricing so the number on the listing is the number at checkout, but resale moves daily, so treat every figure here as a snapshot.
How Deep Does It Go?
Five questions. We will tell you what tier of Steelers fan you are shopping for, and what to actually buy them.
What Not to Buy a Steelers Fan
Five things that look sensible in a search result and land badly when the box is opened.
The Bottom Line
The pattern here is unusual because the best gift is also the cheapest one, and that almost never happens.
Buy the towel. Fifteen dollars, and the man who invented it gave the rights away to a school for people with intellectual disabilities and kept nothing for himself, and it has sent over nine and a half million dollars there since 1996. Every rally towel in every arena in the world descends from it. There is no other object in sport with that combination of ubiquity and decency behind it.
After that, the honest answer depends on the era. For the seventies, the Bradshaw ticket from January 1979 is the top of the guide and the Bleier Purple Heart helmet is the one with the most weight per dollar. For the modern half, the Harrison pick six at $199.99 and the Hines Ward Super Bowl XL photo at $129.99 are the two signed pieces attached to plays people can still describe from memory.
One piece of timing. Baltimore comes to Acrisure on Sunday, December 20, which is the anniversary of the day Franco Harris died and three days short of the anniversary of the Immaculate Reception. Seats were showing from about $138 all in. It is also very probably Aaron Rodgers' last home game, in the first Steelers season since 2006 without Mike Tomlin on the sideline.
