The trend in Wagner cards

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by ahmanfan

Well, since your cost basis is so low, so you sell a Wagner for 50 you’re only going to net 30 to buy a 30 K Ruth, or mantle, etc. That’s the trade I would be unwilling to make personally. Your purchasing power reduces if you make a move..


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By that logic one could never sell a card that has significantly appreciated, because there are always going to be taxes and probably transaction costs that take part of the nominal value. If I keep the Wagner, how does that confer purchasing power on me? We are right back to Yogi.

[ahmanfan]

Right… unless there is a very compelling use of the funds, I do not advise selling a (historically) rare, appreciating asset just to have less spending power on a similar asset.


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[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by ahmanfan

Right… unless there is a very compelling use of the funds, I do not advise selling a (historically) rare, appreciating asset just to have less spending power on a similar asset.


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OK I understand that.

[Prof]

Originally Posted by raulus

Maybe said another way, the person (or persons) who inherit the assets will step up their basis to fair market value on the date they inherit. So if you bought it for $100, and then die when it's worth $1,000,000, your heirs will have a basis of $1,000,000.

So if they sell right away, in theory there should be no gain or loss, because the sales price should be equal to the fair market value ($1,000,000 in this case), which is their basis.

If they wait to sell, then any appreciation after that date would be taxed when they choose to sell. I suppose the recipient could also choose to pass it down again when they die, in which case it gets stepped up again, at least under current law.

A few years ago, there was a proposal to start to tax gains that hadn't been taxed in the last 90 years. But that proposal hasn't gone anywhere so far, so in theory the inheritance tax benefit process could continue for as long as your heirs continue to not need the money.

Hypothetically, do you know what the process would be like here?

- A person dies, and an old photo album gets distributed to a relative. Basically, "Hey, we're cleaning out the house. You want this?"
- Nobody searches through it for 10 years.
- Finally, they look through it, and find a T206 Doyle error card glued to a page.
- They consign and sell the card for 1 million.

Is there like a retroactive appraisal assessment for when the person received the album 10 years ago? Then, you subtract that 10-year-old value from the 1 million, and that's what you pay the gains on?

Or are you just paying on the 1 million since it was never appraised at the time?

-

And what about if the item was truly unique to the hobby with no past market value?

If there was a retroactive appraisal, would they just pull an educated estimate out of their butts that was smaller than the present day value from selling it?


(Sorry if this is derailing the thread a bit.)



Back on topic, Wagners are cool. I wish I had one.

[ahmanfan]

I’d like to know the answer for that myself.


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[Republicaninmass]

Originally Posted by Rhotchkiss

How many of these were Wagners? I am not sure all cards/players are equal and, thus, may not all follow the same trends. I am not saying Wagners won’t be worth half in weeks/months, but I really doubt they will be.

No Wags, but Much lower pops, wasn't that one reason the last one sold so high?


I just can't fathom why all of a sudden sportcards around for 100 years are going ballistic. If wagners dropped 50% I'm sure plenty of people would pick up the pieces as there is demand.


When you look at a piece of cardboard vs. A porsche or a Tuscan villa, whatever floats your boat, it puts life in perspective. I don't know everyone's end game, but at some point either we or our family sell. I guess if one has it all, why not. Buy what makes you happy.

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[Casey2296]

Originally Posted by Prof

Hypothetically, do you know what the process would be like here?

- A person dies, and an old photo album gets distributed to a relative. Basically, "Hey, we're cleaning out the house. You want this?"
- Nobody searches through it for 10 years.
- Finally, they look through it, and find a T206 Doyle error card glued to a page.
- They consign and sell the card for 1 million.

Is there like a retroactive appraisal assessment for when the person received the album 10 years ago? Then, you subtract that 10-year-old value from the 1 million, and that's what you pay the gains on?

Or are you just paying on the 1 million since it was never appraised at the time?

-

And what about if the item was truly unique to the hobby with no past market value?

If there was a retroactive appraisal, would they just pull an educated estimate out of their butts that was smaller than the present day value from selling it?


(Sorry if this is derailing the thread a bit.)



Back on topic, Wagners are cool. I wish I had one.

"Is there like a retroactive appraisal assessment for when the person received the album 10 years ago? Then, you subtract that 10-year-old value from the 1 million, and that's what you pay the gains on?"

I believe this is correct, although I'm not a trust/estate attorney I did stay at a Holiday in Express last night...

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by Casey2296

"Is there like a retroactive appraisal assessment for when the person received the album 10 years ago? Then, you subtract that 10-year-old value from the 1 million, and that's what you pay the gains on?"

I believe this is correct, although I'm not a trust/estate attorney I did stay at a Holiday in Express last night...

Right, the question is the step up basis at time of transfer, and where there is no contemporaneous appraisal or documentation, one would need to do a good faith estimate based on whatever information is reasonably available.

[raulus]

Originally Posted by Prof

Hypothetically, do you know what the process would be like here?

- A person dies, and an old photo album gets distributed to a relative. Basically, "Hey, we're cleaning out the house. You want this?"
- Nobody searches through it for 10 years.
- Finally, they look through it, and find a T206 Doyle error card glued to a page.
- They consign and sell the card for 1 million.

Is there like a retroactive appraisal assessment for when the person received the album 10 years ago? Then, you subtract that 10-year-old value from the 1 million, and that's what you pay the gains on?

Or are you just paying on the 1 million since it was never appraised at the time?

-

And what about if the item was truly unique to the hobby with no past market value?

If there was a retroactive appraisal, would they just pull an educated estimate out of their butts that was smaller than the present day value from selling it?


(Sorry if this is derailing the thread a bit.)



Back on topic, Wagners are cool. I wish I had one.

If this is your situation, it’s time to hire a CPA who does this stuff every day. Most of these exciting fact patterns boil down to facts and circumstances and trying to document stuff. And even then, there’s going to be a lot of gray area, so it will come down to a question of how much you want to play in the gray area.

[Rhotchkiss]

Back to the OP, which is whether the recent surge in Wagner prices is sustainable, as it could impact one’s decision whether to sell an M116 Blue Wagner….

Personally, I think Wagner cards, along with numerous other pre war players, have been very undervalued for a long time, and I think the recent surge is a reflection of that. Additionally, I think Wagner, for the reasons stated earlier, is in a unique group of transcendent players, who will remain desirable to future generations (Ruth, Cobb, Jackson, Gehrig, Mantle, Mays, Robinson, Aaron). Add the relative rarity of Wagner cards (100+ years old, played a bulk of his career in the early 1900s before the rise of most T, D, and E cards, and very few tobacco issues), and I think you have a nice recipe for stability and perhaps additional appreciation. One last factor is that, I bet, most people buying Wagners at these prices can afford to hold them, which means there is unlikely to be a dumping of Wagner cards that leads to a value spiral.

Now, the question of whether now is the time to sell…? That is personal question that I think depends principally on whether you have a better use for the after-tax proceeds.

[Casey2296]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

Right, the question is the step up basis at time of transfer, and where there is no contemporaneous appraisal or documentation, one would need to do a good faith estimate based on whatever information is reasonably available.

That is correct, we've done it with houses in my business before. I'm assuming searching Wagner values of 10'years ago would yield pretty solid information.

[Casey2296]

Originally Posted by Rhotchkiss

Back to the OP, which is whether the recent surge in Wagner prices is sustainable, as it could impact one’s decision whether to sell an M116 Blue Wagner….

Personally, I think Wagner cards, along with numerous other pre war players, have been very undervalued for a long time, and I think the recent surge is a reflection of that. Additionally, I think Wagner, for the reasons stated earlier, is in a unique group of transcendent players, who will remain desirable to future generations (Ruth, Cobb, Jackson, Gehrig, Mantle, Mays, Robinson, Aaron). Add the relative rarity of Wagner cards (100+ years old, played a bulk of his career in the early 1900s before the rise of most T, D, and E cards, and very few tobacco issues), and I think you have a nice recipe for stability and perhaps additional appreciation. One last factor is that, I bet, most people buying Wagners at these prices can afford to hold them, which means there is unlikely to be a dumping of Wagner cards that leads to a value spiral.

Now, the question of whether now is the time to sell…? That is personal question that I think depends principally on whether you have a better use for the after-tax proceeds.

Agreed. It seems to me there has been an incredible amount of rare high quality Ruth cards available in the last few auctions, any thoughts on the seller(s)? Doesn't seem to be a top but damn, some folks were selling a lot of great Ruth cards.

[ValKehl]

Originally Posted by Rhotchkiss

Back to the OP, which is whether the recent surge in Wagner prices is sustainable, as it could impact one’s decision whether to sell an M116 Blue Wagner….

Personally, I think Wagner cards, along with numerous other pre war players, have been very undervalued for a long time, and I think the recent surge is a reflection of that. Additionally, I think Wagner, for the reasons stated earlier, is in a unique group of transcendent players, who will remain desirable to future generations (Ruth, Cobb, Jackson, Gehrig, Mantle, Mays, Robinson, Aaron). Add the relative rarity of Wagner cards (100+ years old, played a bulk of his career in the early 1900s before the rise of most T, D, and E cards, and very few tobacco issues), and I think you have a nice recipe for stability and perhaps additional appreciation. One last factor is that, I bet, most people buying Wagners at these prices can afford to hold them, which means there is unlikely to be a dumping of Wagner cards that leads to a value spiral.

Now, the question of whether now is the time to sell…? That is personal question that I think depends principally on whether you have a better use for the after-tax proceeds.

Ryan, why is it that there aren't any pitchers in your list of transcendent players?

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by ValKehl

Ryan, why is it that there aren't any pitchers in your list of transcendent players?

Young and Mathewson?

[Rhotchkiss]

Originally Posted by ValKehl

Ryan, why is it that there aren't any pitchers in your list of transcendent players?

Good question. I don’t think pitchers get the same respect/hold the same value as hitters. But if you were to list pitchers, I think we would have Young, Johnson, Mathewson, Koufax, and Nolan Ryan.

[ValKehl]

Originally Posted by Rhotchkiss

Good question. I don’t think pitchers get the same respect/hold the same value as hitters. But if you were to list pitchers, I think we would have Young, Johnson, Mathewson, Koufax, and Nolan Ryan.

Nice recovery, Ryan!

[brunswickreeves]

Thanks for the additional cards noted. I’ll add them to the in-progress list and update the data. Happy to contribute a consolidated view for ease of reference and use/action by our hobby.

[aelefson]

I too am amazed at the price for some of the portrait cards. Here is a much cheaper version (I think I paid 10.00 or less) that I like much better than almost all of Wagner's baseball cards. It is a page from a 1910 Baseball Magazine issue. I also included my two other Wagner items, a Baseball Magazine premium from 1914 and a weird postcard (picture of a picture?).

Alan

[Exhibitman]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

Right, the question is the step up basis at time of transfer, and where there is no contemporaneous appraisal or documentation, one would need to do a good faith estimate based on whatever information is reasonably available.

Or you hire a whore, er, an expert to appraise the item. Not needed if the card is a routine seller. There are enough sales of a 1954 Aaron in almost every grade so that you can pin down a value for most any period from any number of data scraping services. Lections Ruth, not so much.

Besides, who are we kidding? When one of us nutcase collector types die the wife or kids will fall all over themselves cashing out the collection as quickly as possible (I can definitely see my wife telling my daughter to "get those f***ing baseball cards out of my house"; she says it now, while I am still here), so post-death appreciation is not going to be an issue for them.

[Yoda]

With the IRS estate threshold (I forget what it is these days, $4M?) you would have to have a really valuable collection or be asset rich in other areas to be faced with a large inheritance tax. Or have I got the wrong end of the stick here?

[raulus]

Originally Posted by Yoda

With the IRS estate threshold (I forget what it is these days, $4M?) you would have to have a really valuable collection or be asset rich in other areas to be faced with a large inheritance tax. Or have I got the wrong end of the stick here?

For 2023, the threshold is $12.92M.

https://www.irs.gov/businesses/small...yed/estate-tax

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by raulus

For 2023, the threshold is $12.92M.

https://www.irs.gov/businesses/small...yed/estate-tax

States are typically much lower though. In Taxachusetts, for example, it's 1 million.

[Exhibitman]

CA has no estate tax. 0%

[raulus]

Originally Posted by Exhibitman

CA has no estate tax. 0%

I promise this isn't political, but...

I have a hard time believing it will stay that way forever. Of course, it's been that way for a while now, so maybe you'll get lucky.

[Exhibitman]

Originally Posted by raulus

I promise this isn't political, but...

I have a hard time believing it will stay that way forever. Of course, it's been that way for a while now, so maybe you'll get lucky.

I don't think it is going back. We have too many large ranches, orchards, vineyards and farms. At worst, we might go back into lock step with the Federal standard, which is pretty much what we do with similar taxes that have high thresholds.

[Peter_Spaeth]

What do ranches and orchards have to do with it, don't follow?

[raulus]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

What do ranches and orchards have to do with it, don't follow?

They’re worth a lot of money and they’re usually family businesses, so they get passed down. And therefore it’s a hot button issue for estate taxes.

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by raulus

They’re worth a lot of money and they’re usually family businesses, so they get passed down. And therefore it’s a hot button issue for estate taxes.

OK. But not clear to me why those people would object more to estate taxes or have any more political clout than the countless other wealthy people in the state.

[raulus]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

OK. But not clear to me why those people would object more to estate taxes or have any more political clout than the countless other wealthy people in the state.

My sense is that family farms have long been the poster child for the anti estate tax movement. It’s a very appealing approach optically, and no politician wants to be seen as being against farmers, small businesses and cute farm animals.

[molenick]

There are also two different 1911 T5 Pinkerton Cabinets poses. If I am reading the pop reports correctly, PSA has one of pose 853 (vertical, fielding) and one of pose 872 (horizontal, batting) and SGC has four of 853 and one of 872.

[Casey2296]

Originally Posted by raulus

My sense is that family farms have long been the poster child for the anti estate tax movement. It’s a very appealing approach optically, and no politician wants to be seen as being against farmers, small businesses and cute farm animals.

That horse has left the barn, the politicians in this state are completely against farmers, ranchers, small business, and the middle class They're currently passing a bill to dismantle prop 13, so they're also against property owners of all types.

[Touch'EmAll]

I was fortunate to nab this Wagner back in the glory days of ebay.

[puckpaul]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

OK. But not clear to me why those people would object more to estate taxes or have any more political clout than the countless other wealthy people in the state.

Lots of people object to the retaxing of wealth in inheritance, but the problem with farms etc. is that they typically are worth a lot more than the cash flow generated and in death a high tax on estate transfer would force many/most to sell to pay the tax. Not a popular option for a long-time family business, and one that is perceived as a societal good.

[vthobby]

I just listed a Wagner on B/S/T and it sold faster than Elly De La Cruz can circle the bases!

[pokerplyr80]

These are the only two Wagner cards I own. It is tempting to sell at today's prices, but I still enjoy owning these, and they would be tough to replace later.

[Exhibitman]

Originally Posted by Casey2296

That horse has left the barn, the politicians in this state are completely against farmers, ranchers, small business, and the middle class They're currently passing a bill to dismantle prop 13, so they're also against property owners of all types.

Not true and also not appropriate for this forum. Take the politics elsewhere so we can keep talking about Wagner cards.

[toothcutter]

I am the lucky winner of the memory lane blue wagner. I thought the card going into the auction would sell at 50k and i managed to pick it up at that price. I also own a pastel portrait Wagner SGC 5 i picked up in the heritage auction back in june. My end game is to hold onto my cards and pass them down to my boys. Looking fwd to chatting more on here.

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by toothcutter

I am the lucky winner of the memory lane blue wagner. I thought the card going into the auction would sell at 50k and i managed to pick it up at that price. I also own a pastel portrait Wagner SGC 5 i picked up in the heritage auction back in june. My end game is to hold onto my cards and pass them down to my boys. Looking fwd to chatting more on here.

As stated I own two 5s so I am delighted with the price, but I am curious what comps made you think going in it would go that high?

[DeanH3]

Congrats on a very special card. And welcome to the boards. What a great way to make an entrance.

I had a really nice SGC 6 Pastel Wagner. I traded it to Sam and got back a nice PSA 4 Pastel along with '34 Goudey Gehrig in return. Although I may be a little upside down now in value, I'm still very happy I made the deal.

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by DeanH3

Congrats on a very special card. And welcome to the boards. What a great way to make an entrance.

I had a really nice SGC 6 Pastel Wagner. I traded it to Sam and got back a nice PSA 4 Pastel along with '34 Goudey Gehrig in return. Although I may be a little upside down now in value, I'm still very happy I made the deal.

Hard to argue with downgrading to a still very nice copy and getting a major card to make up for it.

[Casey2296]

Originally Posted by toothcutter

I am the lucky winner of the memory lane blue wagner. I thought the card going into the auction would sell at 50k and i managed to pick it up at that price. I also own a pastel portrait Wagner SGC 5 i picked up in the heritage auction back in june. My end game is to hold onto my cards and pass them down to my boys. Looking fwd to chatting more on here.

Congrats on a great pick up and welcome to the sub.

[Exhibitman]

Originally Posted by DeanH3

I'm still very happy I made the deal.

That's what it's all about in the end.

[Bigdaddy]

Originally Posted by ValKehl

Ryan, why is it that there aren't any pitchers in your list of transcendent players?

Because chicks dig the long ball.

[Brian]

That is an awesome Tip Top.

I love the Cracker Jacks, but my favorite Wagner cards (aside from THE card, which I will never own) are the M116 and E90-2. If I had kids, I'd pass them down and would never sell (unless circumstances called for that to happen).

[CJinPA]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

Then again, if you had called BS on the Jordan rookie prices two years ago, you would have been absolutely right. Tough to know. But Wagner selling for 20x Johnson or more just seems crazy to me.

Yeah - the Jordan rookie was insane. A simple look at the pop charts told us all that - NOT rare! (shhh, neither is that '80 Topps Henderson rookie - hah)

Re: Wagner, I've had this lovely card since trading for it at the '92 National in Atlanta. Had it graded just a couple of years ago.... prices recently for Authentic and 1.5s makes me very tempted to part with this fella! I still wonder if it's a good thought!

[brunswickreeves]

REA’s 10-day extended summer auction started today, and this m116 Sporting Life Wagner portrait (blue background total POP of 65) is already over $15K from nearly 70 bids (not my card, nor bidding on it):
https://bid.robertedwardauctions.com...?itemid=153632

Based on the last 1910 Authentic graded Tip Top Bread auctioning for $30K, and % increases for other portrait issues like this, are Wagner portrait’s baseline moving in the direction of 1952 Topps Mick? With 739+/- total graded Wagner portrait cards across all issues and 2,500+/- 52 Topps Micks, there certainly are significantly fewer Wagners than Micks.

[troutbum97]

That escalated quickly ....

https://bid.robertedwardauctions.com...?itemid=153632

[toothcutter]

Do you see whats going on over at REA today? Blue portrait Wagner 1 going bonkers!! first day and already at 15500 without the vig!

[toothcutter]

sorry guys, im new and a little excited. Just read above 2 comments.

[Aaron Seefeldt]

Hey Brunswick, just a heads up, you have the e286 Ju Ju Drums Wagner listed as a portrait on your checklist. It's actually a batting follow through action pose. I used to own one, sadly, it rests in someone else's collection now.