The card was used as the grand prize in a promotional contest. That's where the demand comes into play. Buy from many sellers and get your cards all in one shipment! While the sale is currently the overall record, there is a 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle card consigned to Heritage Auctions that closes in just over three weeks; it is sitting at $7.08 million with buyer's premium and is expected to near or eclipse $10 million at close. Even the most beat up copies of the T206 Honus Wagner sell for at least six figures, just as long as it's deemed authentic. He also loves to write about the hobby and has written for Beckett, Topps, SABR and of course, this website. [68], Another T206 Wagner card owned by two Cincinnati men was dismissed as a fake by Bill Mastro and PSA president Joe Orlando. Many of the remaining T206 Honus Wagner cards in existence have rated low on the PSA grading scale. 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. To be a part of history and facilitate this record-breaking sale is an honor.. By that logic, theoldestcard of thebestplayer ever should be the most expensive, right? 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. Beckett Graded Card Investor and Price Guide, Vol. [29] With Sotheby's 10% buyer's premium, the final price of the card came out to $451,000 (equivalent to $897,262 in 2021), nearly four times the pre-auction estimate. [37], The circumstances regarding how Ray came into possession of the Gretzky T206 Wagner have been shrouded in mystery. Thanks for any information. 2) T206s are on thin, off-white card stock. Honus Wagner was a triple threat and an original Hall of Fame inductee. In 2004, a PSA PR-FR-1 Wagner sold for $109,638. He cannot remember how long hes had it or where/when it was purchased or found. Sheen had loaned the card to the All Star Cafe where it was stolen and later recovered by the FBI. [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. 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. But the centering and overall eye appeal of the card are still fantastic. Rare T-206 Wagner card sold for record $7.25M, Yankees put Judge on injured list with hip strain, Harper ready: 'Body has been very good to me', Braves OF Acuna (shoulder) day-to-day after HBP, Tatis fires up crowd in winning return to Petco Park, Giants place SS Crawford, OF Yastrzemski on IL, Astros' Urquidy lands on IL, Garcia exits start, What the longest game in MLB history says about baseball today, Mexico City's uphill climb toward landing an MLB franchise. Ross is the founder of Old Sports Cards and has been collecting sports cards for over 30 years. He didn't want kids to have to buy tobacco to get his card. She consigned the card to Christie's, a New York-based auction house better known for selling famous artworks. RARE 1910-11 M116 Sporting Life HOF Hugh Duffy SGC A Authentic Baseball Card! In 1991, hockey legend Wayne Gretzky and then owner of the Los Angeles Kings, Bill McNall, purchased the card for $451,000. Unsurprisingly, the ATC asked for Wagner's permission to have his picture on a baseball card. A T206 Wagner Honus Wagner baseball card sold for $6.606 million, which includes a 20% buyer's premium, early Monday morning, shattering the record for highest-selling sports card of all time . The card, produced by the American Tobacco Co. between 1909 and 1911 as part of what is now known as the T206 series of baseball cards, is in extremely limited supply and has been setting price. The old record price for a T206 Wagner was $3.75 million, set in May. "[66], Initially sold at auction for $1.62M in 2008, the 'Jumbo Wagner' was featured by Goldin Auctions in their 2013 Winter Auction, which closed on April 5, 2013. A SCG 3 grade of the famous T206 Honus Wagner card is set to hit the open market and could set a new record for sports cards. Then it has on the back the story about him not wanting his name associated with tobacco. The 1909-11 T206 card was graded in Good 2 condition on a scale of 1 to 10 from Sportscard Guaranty Corp (SGC). I am new to this. Mastro worked with Sotheby's for the next four years to facilitate sports memorabilia auctions and established himself as a leading card dealer in the industry. 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. The T206 Honus Wagner card is one of the most valuable cards in the hobby. Five years later, in 2005, another PSA 2 card sold for $237,000. The T206 Honus Wagner card is not the oldest card ever. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); Copyright 2008-2023 The Cardboard Connection. On August 16, 2021, it was announced that a T206 Honus Wagner baseball card sold for $6.606 million, which includes a 20% buyer's premium, breaking the record for highest-selling sports card of all time. 1? Gretzky resold the card four years later to Walmart and a company called Treat Entertainment for $500,000. [60], On December 4, 2012, Mastro was indicted on federal fraud charges, and entered a plea of not guilty. [11] Two years later, the ATC was broken up into several major companies as part of the United States Supreme Court ruling in United States v. American Tobacco Company, 221 U.S. 106 (1911). [61] In 2013, Mastro pleaded guilty, having entered into a plea agreement with federal prosecutors, and admitted to trimming the Honus Wagner card in the mid-1980s to increase its value. Home Baseball Baseball Cards T206 Honus Wagner Baseball History of the Worlds Most Famous Card. The card, produced by the American Tobacco Co. between 1909 and 1911 as part of what is now known as the T206 series of baseball cards, is in extremely limited supply and has been setting price records for more than 80 years, most recently in 2016 at $3.12 million. He had a photograph of the card taken before the transaction with Mastro and claimed that the card in the photo looked significantly different from the photo of Gretzky's card. Your best bet is to have it graded and authenticated by PSA or BVG. The 1909-11 T206 Honus Wagner set a new world record price for a baseball card, selling for. Only time will tell if other examples are waiting to be discovered. [79] The card came with her brother's handwritten note: "Although damaged, the value of this baseball card should increase exponentially throughout the 21st century! eBay officials decided to remove the listing the day before the auction was scheduled to begin. 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. And it is through the roof. In November 2005, Cobb and Edwards put the card up for sale on eBay. Here's a look at some sales points of this card over the years: Because this particular T206 Honus Wagner card has an extra 1/16th of an inch of cardboard in its bottom border, it has been dubbed the "Jumbo Wagner". In 2000, the card was sold via Robert Edward Auctions to card collector Brian Seigel for $1.27 million. 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. He hit .328 for his career in 2,794 games. Standard Shipping (eBay Standard Envelope for Trading Cards, Stamps, Postcards & Coins up to $20) Estimated between Fri, May 5 and Tue, May 9 to 23917 Brian Dwyer, owner and president of Robert Edward Auctions and who brokered the T206 sale, spoke with The Athletic on Tuesday . "The T-206 is one of the reasons I do what I do," Goldin concluded. Contact him at [emailprotected]. It sold for about $316,000 in 2010 and the strip includes other players, including Cy Young, Mordecai Brown, Johnny Kling, and Frank Bowerman. No matter the reason(s), so few copies have made it to 2022 that the Wagner is routinely called the holy grail or Mona Lisa of trading cards. Since then, the card has changed hands a few times but remains known as the "Gretzky Wagner" to this day. With a hobby so dependent on condition and rarity for determining value, it is remarkable that the Wagner gets such a pass on condition. The American Tobacco Company was formed as a result of an 1889 merger of five major cigarette manufacturers: W. Duke & Sons & Company, Allen & Ginter, Goodwin & Company, F. S. Kinney Company and William S. Kimball & Company. The card attracted lots of media attention over its questionable authenticity, including being a feature segment on the highly rated sports documentary program, HBO Real Sports. 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. Honus Wagner's baseball card in the T206 series is one of the most coveted of its kind. [39] (Halper sold that card and 200 other baseball memorabilia items in 1998 to Major League Baseball for over $5,000,000. The card long had a controversial past, as some speculate that it was once altered, most likely having been trimmed or cut from an undistributed sheet. It is in excellent condition. Just a short six months later, the card was sold to another anonymous collector for $2.8 million. The next year, a Florida postal worker won the card and auctioned it at Christie's auction house for $640,000. Thanks for contacting us. The card is part of collector Jefferson Burdick's gigantic collection of over 30,000 cards that he put together over his lifetime. As you can see, every time the card has sold, the value has risen significantly. Offering Shares Of T206 Honus Wagner Card Friday", "Don't put this in your spokes: 'Jumbo Wagner' card could fetch $3M", "Bidding to be Open February 25 for the T206 Honus Wagner PSA EX 5 (MC) and 850 Additional Lots in Goldin Auctions 2013 Winter Auction", "Jumbo Wagner Bidding to Start at $500,000", "ESPN: T206 Honus Wagner sells for $2.1 Million", "REA Pulls Back Curtain on Annual Blockbuster Auction: Will Include T206 Wagner", "T206 Wagner, Gehrig Jersey, Ruth Bat Part of Live Auction", "Rare baseball card tops $1 million in auction", "1909 Honus Wagner baseball card sells for $2.1 million", "Honus Wagner Card - What Makes the T206 Jumbo So Special? [75] Connelly met a card dealer in New York City, Mike Mangasarian, who was sent on behalf of a prominent collector to check the card out. 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. [52] On July 15, the card was sold to Brian Seigel, a collector from California, for $1.265 million (equivalent to $1.991million in 2021). The front and back of the T206 Honus Wagner being sold by Robert Edward Auctions. However, this record was recently broken when a Mike Trout 2009 Bowman Chrome Draft Prospects Superfractors series rookie card with a card count of 1 sold in August 2020 for a record setting $3.93 million, and pushed further back by a 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle card that sold for $5.2 million in November 2020,[6] making Wagner the third most valuable baseball card in the world. This is an amazing find!!!!!!! A Proof Strip Exists: A 5-card strip featuring the Wagner card is known and was authenticated by SGC. 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! Burdick had his reason. A mangled Honus Wagner baseball card, graded and authenticated by PSA more than 25 years ago and stashed away by a collector ever since, just sold for way more than the average home in America. Another example sold for $6.6 million in August 2021, making it the most expensive sports card. It is the highest graded example to hit the market in the past six . T206 Honus Wagner Card: The Ultimate Collector's Guide It's the Holy Grail of baseball cards. Because the company came to monopolize the tobacco industry, ATC did not have to conduct advertising or promotions for its products. Or, feel free to call/text me at 305-684-6680! For one thing, the Wagner currently for sale was given a grade of VG 3 (on a scale of ten) by the authentication agency SGC. 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. Let's take a look at some of the most famous: This is the finest known example of the T206 Honus Wagner card, having received a grade of 8 Near Mint - Mint from PSA in 1991. [23], Another explanation surmised is that Wagner did not consent because he felt he was not receiving just compensation from the ATC for his baseball card. Gotta Have . In April 2011, that anonymous purchaser was revealed to be Ken Kendrick, owner of the Arizona Diamondbacks. Gretzky, who was not a major card collector, said he purchased it because he thought "the market would remain strong," thus making for a valuable investment. The T-206 is one of the reasons I do what I do and why serious collectors around the world love this hobby so much. The most famous T206 Honus Wagner is the "Gretzky T206 Honus Wagner" card. He threatened to seek legal action against ATC if they went ahead and distributed his baseball card. If so, then please fill out the form below and I'll be in touch right away. Upload your video Looking for specific info? In his work Inside T206: A Collector Guide to the Classic Baseball Card Set, Scot A. But it's believed there may be less than 60. [3] The card's odd texture and shape led to speculation that it was altered. 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.
?>