T206 "Wagner" of Soccer Cards - Proposal

[Bored5000]

Originally Posted by Anish

There’s a difference between an auction house calling a card a Wagner equivalent in order to promote it and the card actually being comparable based on the criteria established by Al.

The Mikan, Nagurski, and Vezina all feature inaugural HOF inductees from top sets. However, none is a SSP. The Mikan and Nagurski are high number cards and accordingly relative short prints, but still readily available; I’ve owned all three of these cards but will never own a Wagner. It’s not rare for a Pre-War card but it’s incredibly rare relative to the rest of the non-SP’s in the set.

Graziano, from what I’ve just read, fits the criteria. I can’t think of any soccer card that does. The most popular sets from what I’ve seen are probably the Wills and Ogden’s tobacco cards, the AB&C Gum cards, and the Panini World Cup stickers...but I don’t even really know. Part of my goal in asking what everyone was collecting was to see which sets people are collecting. But this is just a small group of English speakers on a vintage baseball forum haha.

The Pele Quigol or other card might be the “Ruth RC” of soccer...but the Wagner is not even close to being a RC. That’s not what makes it *the* card.

Anyway, any discussion of vintage cards is a fun one in my opinion and I certainly don’t mean to shoot down other ideas while offering my own. I just don’t see a Wagner equivalent anywhere apart from boxing.

I agree this is a very interesting discussion. The Nagurski, Vezina, and Mikan cards are almost universally on a "Mt. Rushmore" of cards for that particular sport. I think the fact that you have owned all three of them, but will never be able to afford a Wagner T206 is because baseball far and away trumps everything else when it comes to prices. There are numerous $10,000+ baseball cards of players that the general public has never even heard of.

Not that Joe Orlando is the be all and end all when it comes to cards, but IIRC those cards were the highest ranked cards in their particular sport when he did his top 200 sports cards book.

There is no "correct" criteria for what make a card a Wagner equivalent in other sports. But to me, I think the card has to trade hands at least once or twice a year. That is why I would go with the Nagurski card over the Anonymous (John Dunlop) Mayo card for American football. The Just So Cy Young card would, no, doubt, fetch an eye-popping price if it were to go to auction. But it is just not common enough to be compared to the mystique of the Wagner. Being easily available has not hurt the desirability (and mystique) of the '52 Topps Mantle at all.

The Graziano card is an interesting case; it is far away the most valuable boxing card in the hobby, but Graziano (while a world champion) is not on anyone's list of top 10 or top 20 all-time boxers. Same thing for the McKinley card from the 1932 U.S. Caramel set. Hockey and baseball also have some extreme short prints that sell for five or even six figures based solely the issuing company not printing many examples so a prize could not be redeemed.