Ask any avid sports card collector what the holy grail of the hobby is and they will all definitively give the same answer―the 1909 T206 American Tobacco Company Honus Wagner card.
There is believed to be only 60 such cards currently in circulation, and because of that, any of the Hall of Fame Pittsburgh Pirates shortstop's T206 cards fetch a pretty penny at auction. The latest Wagner card set to be auctioned could very well set a new gold standard in the world of trading cards, however.
According to Jim Salter of the Associated Press, 64-year-old auctioneer Bill Goodwin is selling a Wagner card owned by an unidentified Houston business man and expects that it could sell for as much as $1.5 million at auction. While Wagner cards have sold for more in private deals, none has ever gone for that much at auction.
With eight career batting titles Wagner is considered to be one of the best players of all time, but scarcity is what makes his card worth so much more than any other. According to Slater, Wagner's T206 cards were pulled from circulation after about 200 were made because he reportedly didn't want to encourage children to smoke, although he did endorse chewing tobacco at the time.
Since the card is sold for increasingly more money each time it is auctioned off, it shouldn't come as a big surprise that this one could go for as much as $1.5 million, especially since this particular Wagner card has been graded higher than all but five in existence.
The fact that a small piece of cardboard could sell for that much seems absolutely crazy, but it's the nature of the beast in the world of card collecting. If you want to own the best pieces, then you'll have to pay top dollar, and that is precisely what somebody will ultimately do.
For a normal person like you or me, it's impossible to imagine spending that sum of money on a card, but the person that wins this Wagner auction will undoubtedly be a multi-millionaire who can afford it. If I had that type of money to spend, I can't definitively say that I wouldn't pursue a Wagner card because it would give me instant credibility as a collector.
To a non-collector it probably seems stupid to spend that amount of money, but a Honus Wagner card isn't any different from stamps, coins or anything else of value that people collect. Whatever it is that you as an individual collect, think about whether you would be willing to pay top dollar for the cream of the crop if you had the means to do so.
My guess is that you would, and as a card collector, I would most certainly jump at the Wagner card if I suddenly had $1.5 million to burn. Not only would it give you an incredibly rare piece of history, but with the way the Wagner card appreciates in value, it's a pretty good investment for 20 years down the line as well.
It's something that those who don't collect cards will probably never understand, but I'll most definitely be envious of the person who lands the rarest piece in all of card collecting.
Eli Whiteside Mike Fontenot Brett Pill Pat Burrell Jhan Marinez Anibal Sanchez
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