The first thing people usually ask is: how much is a T206 Honus Wagner card worth? [12][13], The typical card in the T206 series had a width of .mw-parser-output .frac{white-space:nowrap}.mw-parser-output .frac .num,.mw-parser-output .frac .den{font-size:80%;line-height:0;vertical-align:super}.mw-parser-output .frac .den{vertical-align:sub}.mw-parser-output .sr-only{border:0;clip:rect(0,0,0,0);height:1px;margin:-1px;overflow:hidden;padding:0;position:absolute;width:1px}1+716 inches (3.65cm) and a height of 2+58 inches (6.67cm). Some memorabilia collectors have dismissed Ray's claims, saying that the photo hardly proves any doctoring was ever done on the card. HONUS WAGNER 1909 T206 Cigarette SOVEREIGN Back REPRINT - Baseball Card SOVEREIGN variation back The Most Valuable Baseball Card - once sold for $2.8 Million! Because of a dispute Wagner had with American Tobacco, the company that produced the card, his card was pulled from production. He explained that all T-206s have dark brown letters printed for the team's name and player's name and this one was in black. This story has been shared 240,292 times. The famous T206 Honus Wagner sold for a record $7.25 million in a private sale facilitated by Goldin. T206 Honus Wagner All Cigarette Tobacco Card Back Backs Reprint Novelty 16 Card Lot 5 out of 5 stars (5) $ 19.99. [28], In 1991, National Hockey League player Wayne Gretzky purchased a mint condition 1909 T206 Honus Wager baseball card, with a Piedmont cigarette brand back, at a Sotheby's auction. The majority of the cards seem to have been printed with a Sweet Caporal 150 Series-Factory 25 back. A T206 Wagner owned by renowned collector Frank Nagy sold for $456,000 in December 2005, through Mastro's auction company. [17], Starting from January 1909, the ATC sought authorization from baseball players for inclusion in the T206 series, which would feature 524 major league players, 76 of whom would later be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. In 2004, a PSA PR-FR-1 Wagner sold for $109,638. As you can see, every time the card has sold, the value has risen significantly. And it expects to see the record obliterated. Here's a look at five different price points at which this card has sold over the years: This card was part of a large find of T206 cards that made its way into the hobby from a collector in the Chesapeke Bay area. Written by Michael O'Keeffe of the New York Daily News, The Card provides a detailed account of the origins of the T206 Honus Wagner baseball card, its rise to hobby prominence, and some of the less-than-noble events surrounding the card's provenance in the last several years. In 1991, Copeland sold the card to ice hockey figures Wayne Gretzky and Bruce McNall for $451,000. Friedland dropped out of the competition after the phone bidder countered with a $410,000 bid for the card. [48] At around 9:00p.m., Hall of Fame third baseman Brooks Robinson, one of King's guests on the show, pulled out the name of one Patricia Gibbs, a postal worker living in Hollywood, Florida. In 2010, a rare Honus Wagner was found in a box left by the brother of Sister Virginia Muller, who left all her possessions to the Baltimore-based School Sisters of Notre Dame. Several months later, in November 2008, an SGC 3 graded Wagner card was sold by Philip Weiss Auctions of New York. Thousands of collectors chase down T206's in hopes of doing the nearly impossible (completing the entire set) or just to have a few from this iconic set in their collection. There are only 60 Honus Wagner baseball cards left in the world, ESPN estimates, and the last time one went to marketin Aug. 2021it sold for $6.6 million, becoming the most expensive sports . [45] In 1993, illusionist David Copperfield used the popularity of the card as part of a magic trick which he performed during a TV Special. After years of refusing to have the card graded, the owners agreed to have the card examined by a fringe grading service, Card Collector Services, who also ruled that the card was simply a well-produced reprint. The T206 Honus Wagner baseball card depicts the Pittsburgh Pirates' Honus Wagner, known as "The Flying Dutchman, a dead-ball era baseball player who is widely considered to be one of the best players of all time. He didn't want kids to have to buy tobacco to get his card. In 1991, Copeland sold the card to legendary hockey Hall of Famer Wayne Gretzky and one-time owner of the Los Angeles Kings, Bruce McNall for $451,000, which again caught the attention of non-collectors and the mainstream press. skytuc_49 (0) Save seller. The famousT206 Honus Wagnersold for a record $7.25 million in a private sale facilitated by Goldin Auctions, the company said Thursday. [51] Four years later, on July 5, 2000, Gidwitz partnered with eBay and Robert Edwards Auctions to start a 10-day online auction for the card. "[46], In 1995, Gretzky sold the card to Walmart and Treat Entertainment for $500,000 (equivalent to $889,168 in 2021). An owner of a Long Island sports memorabilia store announced that a man named Alan Ray was selling his 1909 T206 Wagner for $25,000. This didnt thwart the owners' attempts to prove the legitimacy of their card, who next presented it to Integrated Paper Services (IPS), an independent paper testing and analysis lab to have their card's paper checked for era of production. In February, 2007, Siegel then sold the card privately to an anonymous collector for $2.35 million. Another raw T206 Wagner can be found at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art. what?! My name is jason and I just have found the holy grail of cardsthe 1909 t206 bonus Wagner sheet corporal. But, as the condition increases so does the price. 2 No. That would be a problem for a modern card, but for a 110-year-old Wagner, VG 3 means the card is in exceptional condition, with relatively sharp corners, relatively light creasing and relatively good coloration. Read more here. Only time will tell if other examples are waiting to be discovered. The card was given this designation by PSA due to its oversized nature. ! One of theworlds rarest baseball cardswas sold for an extraordinary price last week. In August, a T206 Honus Wagner baseball card set the stratospheric record for most expensive sports card of all time when it sold for $6.606 million with Robert Edward Auctions. [50], Michael Gidwitz, the same individual who battled with Gretzky and Mark Friedland for the card at the Copeland auction in 1991, won the Christie's auction with a bid of $641,500 in 1996 (equivalent to $1,108,367 in 2021). But the T206 Honus Wagner card he listed as the most expensive and valuable card of them all worth $50, about $1,000 in today's money. After spending hours unsuccessfully trying to contact Gibbs, King's staff finally got through to her phone, and informed Gibbs of her prize. Widely considered the most valuable baseball card of all-time, the T206 Honus Wagner has been the subject of great debate and, at times, controversy. The card is a T206 Honus Wagner -- one of the move coveted sports cards on the planet -- that dates back to 1909. If you hang around this hobby long enough, you'll find there are many quirks in how baseball card values are determined. Now, Robert Edward Auctions has its hands on another Wagner. michael reardon If you have a local card shop, start there. This early 20th-century card of Honus Wagner is one of just two copies known to exist. So this Wagner is a collectible that really does transcend the hobby.. [29] Copeland received around $5 million for the entire collection. Linda (ID 58011) Once proven authentic, the card is potentially worth A LOT. The 1909 T206 Wagner is considered the "Holy Grail" of sports card and the SCG 3 is one of the five best-known examples in existence. The final bid was $700,000, but with a 13% buyer's premium added, the realized price was $791,000. The Trout and the Mantle were just two in a slew of record or notable sales that also included a $5.2 million LeBron James card (which set a mark in April for a basketball card) and a $3.75 million Wayne Gretzky card (in June, a new peak for a hockey card). While the card and memorabilia industry had been growing in recent years, the pandemic ignited a frenzy. Auction houses including REA saw their sales spike in 2020 and are projecting them to double again in 2021. I got extremely lucky. A bidding competition between Mike Gidwitz, Mark Friedland and an unknown phone bidder ensued. By comparison, there are hundreds of Ty Cobb, Christy Mathewson, Cy Young, Walter Johnson and other Hall of Famers from the set whose cards have been professionally graded. Despite PSA company president David Hall's personal statement that the card was "superb" and a "fantastic card in every way," a number of people in the memorabilia industry were not convinced that the card had not been altered at some point. Note: Please note that this card is not an originally issued card, but rather a Reprint of the Original. [71] When Cobb and Edwards tried to sell the card on eBay in 2002, an attorney from Newport, Kentucky (part of the Cincinnati metro) filed a police report against the two men because he believed the card was a reprint that was stolen from his office months earlier. My sentiments exactly gentlemen..Very very unkikely if not a guarantee that not a single card of the 10 mentioned here are authentic. [2] In 1933, the card was first listed at a price value of US$50 in Jefferson Burdick's The American Card Catalog (equivalent to $1,000 in 2021), making it the most expensive baseball card in the world at the time. [64] Mastro was released in May 2017. The version of the Wagner that sold recently was graded a 2 out of 10 by Sportscard Guaranty Corp., or SGC; the 2021 record-breaker received a 3 from SGC. This is when Gretzky approached the Professional Sports Authenticator (PSA) company to grade the card, resulting in the aforementioned PSA 8 NM-MT grading. Since then, the card has changed hands a few times but remains known as the "Gretzky Wagner" to this day. The "MC" in the grade refers to the fact that it was miscut, hence its extra size. The first suggests that Wagner, a Hall of Fame shortstop for the Pittsburgh Pirates, didnt want his likeness used to market tobacco. According to PSA, current market values in various conditions are: Can you imagine owning a baseball card worth $7.5 million dollars? Ive been in this business for a very long time and seen a lot of incredible trading cards and pieces of memorabilia, but there is nothing on earth like a T-206 card, Ken Goldin, the Goldin executive chairman and founder, said in a news release. History is just a couple of mouse clicks away. Most collectors equate Honus Wagner with his T206 card and aren't aware of his playing day and later year cards that can fit into some collector budgets. The winning bid was placed by Chicago collector, Michael Gidwitz. That's what happened in August of last year, when one sold at an auction for $6.6 million, setting the record for the most expensive sports card of all time. They had to shut down the sale, however, because Connelly only agreed to appraise the card if his report was printed in its entirety at the eBay card listing. "[22] However, Wagner chewed tobacco, and he had previously appeared in advertisements for many tobacco products, including a cigar baseball trading card in 1899 and a newspaper ad for Murad cigarettes during the 1909 World Series. Honus Wagner in 1905 In 1901, the American League began to sign National League players, creating a bidding war, which depleted the league of many talented players. They don't come up for sale too often but if you're ever lucky enough to purchase one, you'll possess not only the most famous baseball card but one of the most famous collectibles in general! Beckett's population report shows they've graded 0. The consultant stated that a decent counterfeit of the card could only be produced from a "master pressman with 510 years experience, and would require a machine which would cost between $500,000 and $2 million. After his business ventures were hard hit by the Depression, Wagner returned to the Pirates to coach from 1933 until 1951. [36] McNall orchestrated the plan to buy the card. As a result of the publicity generated from the financially successful Gretzky T206 Honus Wagner, a number of previously undiscovered legitimate T206 Wagner cards have surfaced. The technical grade includes the MC qualifier. The card was used as the grand prize in a promotional contest. This is an authentic reprint of the famous 1909 Tobacco Honus Wagner Baseball Card. To give you an idea, here are four of the most popular cards from the sets and their respective populations (number of them graded) by PSA currently: So, that should give you a good picture of how scarce Wagner's card is relative to others in the set. The two men, John Cobb and Ray Edwards, have tried to prove that their Piedmont-backed card is not a fake and, due to its excellent condition, should fetch over $1 million in an auction. Less than six months later, the card was sold to another anonymous collector for $2.8 million. The Gretzky T206 Wagner was first sold by Alan Ray to a baseball memorabilia collector named Bill Mastro, who sold the card two years later to Jim Copeland for nearly four times the price he had originally paid. She consigned the card to Christie's, a New York-based auction house better known for selling famous artworks. I think some of yall are telling fables.. Guaranteed not one of them is authentic. Turns out, half a Honus is still pretty valuable. It's the face of an entire hobby. [27] They stopped production of the card, however, after Wagner denied authorization. [44] Pre-auction estimates placed Copeland's T206 Honus Wagner at a price of $114,000. [66], The Honus Wagner card was first reissued by Topps in 2002, with variations on its background color. And in this guide well dive into what makes this card so special, why its so valuable, and what youll have to do to acquire one. In 2019, Rally Rd announced that it was going to begin selling shares in the card at $52 each. In 2010, the fabled T206 Honus Wagner card once again gained national notoriety when a new card was found. Just a short six months later, the card was sold to another anonymous collector for $2.8 million. [20] He had appeared on advertisements for a number of other products such as chewing gum, gunpowder, and soft drinks. [53][54] In February 2007, the Associated Press announced that Seigel had sold the card privately and directly to an anonymous collector from Southern California for $2.35 million (equivalent to $3.071million in 2021). 1. Gibbs could not afford the taxes on the card, so she decided to consign the card to an auction later on. There was also a private sale in June of a 1914 Babe Ruth card at a price that was said to beat $5.2 million but was not publicly disclosed. [56] The anonymous collector was later revealed to be Arizona Diamondbacks owner Ken Kendrick. The T206 Honus Wagner is rare and defies traditional grading standards. The card was sent all across the United States, as part of Walmart's plan to rejuvenate the baseball card market. Another example sold for $6.6 million in August 2021, making it the most expensive sports card. My son has a T206 Honus Wagner card and we are trying to figure out if it is a reprint or what. Mastro has told colleagues in the memorabilia circuit that he purchased the card from a printer, which was not Ray's profession. The front of all T206 series cards, including the Wagner card, displayed a lithograph of the player[15] created by a multi-stage printing process in which a number of colors were printed on top of each other to create a lithograph with the appropriate design. He played for the Louisville Colonels and thePittsburgh Pirates. He refused American Tobacco Co.s request to use his image, which led to the company ceasing production of his card. Gretzky resold the card four years later to Walmart and a company called Treat Entertainment for $500,000. From there, youll likely want to contact a major auction house. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. LOL thats what I was thinking. The second, and more probable, is that Wagner felt entitled to compensation from the American Tobacco Company for the use of his name and likeness to market their product. [62] Mastro's plea agreement was rejected by a judge. It has even been the topic of a book by the same name. An IPS expert determined that the card dated back to 1910, which would be consistent to the time period when the card was distributed. REA launched the online auction on July 23, with bidding scheduled to conclude on August 15. There's really no way of knowing for certain. your purchase may be eligible for eBay Money Back Guarantee if the return request is made within 14 days from delivery. Although not quite as valuable as the previously mentioned Gretzky and Jumbo Wagners, this card is still impressively expensive considering even in poor condition it has sold for six figures! Then who knows. As Friedland made each bid, the phone bidder would counter with a bid $5,000 or $10,000 higher. Otherwise, manually looking things up on eBay is also a good way to get a second opinion just pay particular attention to condition, which is very important for vintage stuff. campbell county obituaries,
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