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When Wayne Gretzky was 13 years old, coach Ron St. Amand already had an idea to help his star players hockey career. "I remember him saying to Wayne, Weve got to beef you up to get bigger to go on and play this as a career," Rons son Rick St. Amand recalls. "Wayne actually came and worked at our printing company, sweeping floors and emptying garbage pails and doing that kind of stuff." Even then Gretzky was no ordinary 13-year-old and his hockey career was already the subject of media attention. That will happen when a kid scores 378 goals in a season. Walter Gretzky started keeping track of his sons stats, so by the spring of 1974 Brantford, Ont., was abuzz about the prodigys 1,000th lifetime goal. When he scored it in a late-season exhibition game, Gretzky signed his stick and gave it to Ron St. Amand and it remained in the coachs house until last year when he died at age 73. Rather than decide which one of her children should inherit the historic stick, St. Amands widow decided to put it up for auction with bidding through Heritage Auctions set to close Aug. 1. The value of the stick isnt clear because Gretzky memorabilia generally doesnt go back that far, but the U.S.-based auction house expects it to fetch $20,000 or more. The highest bid online as of Friday morning was $8,000. "The uniqueness of this stick is the fact that its probably one of the more important pieces of Waynes early history," Rick St. Amand said in a recent interview. "Pretty remarkable that even at 13 he was taking almost an adult position of signing the stick and giving it to someone he cares for." Shawn Chaulk of Fort McMurray, Alta., who owns one of the largest collections of Gretzky memorabilia, is interested in purchasing the stick, which he says collectors will be very "opinionated on." "A lot of the collectors who collect his career stuff have no interest in that kind of thing because its not part of the pro career or when the person turned the corner and became pro, things like that," Chaulk said. "Itll appeal to some people just because its unique. It appealed to me more because its unique and because Im a greedy collector who likes to have everything. "But Ive had a lot of people tell me straight up they have no interest in it because its not a milestone NHL stick or where he set a record in the WHA or something like that. Its a childhood stick, so it doesnt rank or come on the radar for a lot of collectors." Chaulk said its hard to prove the authenticity of items from an athletes younger days but has "no doubt" that Gretzky signed the stick after comparing the signature to others he had from his childhood. Chaulk knows all about Gretzkys handwriting from letters to another coach he owned and sold, one that even had a mention of Ron St. Amand. Those letters sold for an average of $500, Chaulk said, after he and others wondered if theyd fetch thousands of dollars. His experience with Gretzkys only known equipment bag that he figured was worth $2,000 and then sold for $10,000 showed that auctions can sometimes lead to unpredictable results. Thats part of the reason no one really knows how much this Gretzky stick is worth. For decades its been furniture, a conversation piece, in Ron St. Amands house. "I have never asked. Ive been curious," Rick St. Amand said. "(Heritage Auctions representatives) have been ones to say that we dont know what this stick would fetch. And I guess they dont. I guess it just depends on what kind of interest it draws." Chaulk has paid $50,000 for Gretzky skates, $20,000 for helmets and $35,000 for gloves. He has owned a plethora of sticks from his time in junior hockey through the end of his NHL career but has never paid that much for one, saying the rare ones in the past have sold for between $6,