A legendarily rare 1909 baseball card featuring Pittsburgh Pirates player Honus Wagner has been sold for $1.9 million at auction.
The Wagner card is one of the most celebrated and sought after in baseball history, and the set from which this example comes is a rarity in its own right and contains several other collecting treasures.
The Wagner card was sold by the Mile High Card company this Saturday, April 26.
Honus Wagner was a great of the game. He was one of the first five players to go into the Baseball Hall of Fame when it opened, and won a World Series with the Pirates.
An example of the Wagner card, worth far more than its weight in gold.
Wagner’s status makes him a collectible figure. And these cards are very old. Baseball cards were aimed largely at children (though these were sold with cigarettes) and weren’t designed to last long.
Usually though they were issued in huge number.
But one card in the T206 series was denied that status by Wagner, who demanded his card be withdrawn.
It’s possible that he didn’t like the association with cigarettes. It’s also possible that – as he endorsed other tobacco products – he simply wanted a better deal out of the American Tobacco Company which issued the set.
Either way, it’s thought that between 50 and 60 cards from that set showing the big, German-heritage player exist today.
Wagner as a coach in 1940. He remained a legend in Pittsburgh until his death, aged 81 in 1955.
Condition and authentication are vital to the value of these items, and the card sold this week was authenticated by PSA (Professional Sports Authenticator) and given a condition grading of “restored”.
The T206 cards were issued between 1909 and 1911. They are now assiduously documented, collected and traded, sometimes for huge sums.
Reportedly, last year was the first time in 30 years that no T206 Wagner changed hands in a sale.
This card had previously sold in 2003 for just under $64,000. Before that it had apparently been tucked into a wallet for decades while in the custody of one family. It went into a vault in the 1980s after it was nearly lost in a burglary.
It had two previous sales over $1 million.
The most valuable example of a Wagner T206 ever was sold in 2022 for $7.2 million and it is also the most valuable baseball card ever sold.
