Leon's thread a few weeks ago about his purchase of the John D. Wagner-Jefferson Burdick letters in the Hunt's auction, and Rob Lifson's reminiscences in that thread about meeting John Wagner c.1980 (
http://www.net54baseball.com/showthr...=207204&page=2), reminded me of the interview with Wagner that appeared in one of the Sport Americana Baseball Card Price Guides (i.e. the early annual Beckett guides) in the early 1980s. Now that Leon has started posting some of those Wagner-Beckett letters, I went to look at my old Beckett guides and found that article, which I've scanned and posted below. It appeared in the 1982 Sport Americana Baseball Card Price Guide, #4, and was written by Christopher Benjamin, who Rob Lifson also mentioned in his post. As you can see, it includes Wagner's fascinating memories of collecting T206 cards as a child, it confirms the story about Honus Wagner telling John Wagner why he stopped production of his T206 card (with more details about where and when the two Wagners met), and it quotes some of the Wagner-Burdick correspondence, which I assume Wagner showed to Benjamin. I'm not sure whether Leon has the letters that are quoted here, but it's all fascinating just the same. I also included the following page that had a picture of John D. Wagner and some of his oil paintings, as well as the first page of the T3 listings, so everybody can see what those cards were going for in 1982!
