T206 "Wagner" of Soccer Cards - Proposal

[aljurgela]

Originally Posted by Bored5000

I admit that my knowledge of soccer cards pales in comparison to some of the posters on here, but I love learning about the iconic cards from other sports. I think the Billy Meredith is way too obscure to the "Wagner of soccer cards." The T206 Wagner has been famous for 100 years; the Meredith card has only been known for 15 years.

if we are going to force any soccer card into being the equivalent of the T206 Wagner, I think it is the Quigol Pele.

Fair enough. Certainly that is one of the most famous cards (and most valuable), so that would hit the mark for most. My criteria was a bit different. Onto a couple of the other points....

I can pretty much guarantee that most Brits would not know who Honus Wagner is, so I am not surprised that Billy Meredith seems obscure to US collectors. However, I am pretty sure that most Brits would have heard of Babe Ruth. I could be wrong, but I think that this is reasonable given the amount of cards issued overseas that include him (pretty much like Pele - the global super star with cards of him issued all over the world). Therefore, in defining my "Wagner" I was looking for a valuable card of an amazing player / HOFer from a highly collected prewar set that was not just the rookie card of the sports best player - that is easy. I was also trying to stay away from post war cards in the spirit of the Wagner (which would include all Pele cards).

BTW, Billy Meredith had a 20+ year career and have many cards issued of him and he (and Steve Bloomer) are probably the top two early British Football stars. Of course there is no true Wagner of soccer cards... was just hoping to have fun with some entrants and see what others thought.

This was just meant to be a fun conversation and I was hoping to get some other "entrants" to the game from other posters to see what other cards are out there.