Was your father the original owner of that Wagner? If not, where did he find such nice Wagner? Amazing card!

What this conversation reinforces to me is the absolute absurdity of pinning precise numbers to grades, down to half a grade, and having a card's value change by multiples based on the most minor of grade shifts, which in and of themselves are entirely subjective. To me the only value of grading is to opine whether a card is authentic and unaltered. After that, good images of the front and verso are all that I need.

As has been discussed a number of times, the absurdity of TPG reaches its zenith with blank-backed photographic cards (e.g., N172s), where photo quality is not factored in but blemishes on the versos are. Without exaggeration I can state that there are 1s I would prefer over 8s.

Technically this Wagner might be a 3.5. But if one has it in hand, as I have, it is gorgeous and IMO has significantly greater eye appeal than all the other vg-exs I have seen. Yes, when one blows up the corners, one can see the paper loss and other defects. But when you see it in person, those defects don't stand out.

For my taste, the two things that detract the most are its size and the stain in the upper left portion of the orange background. I've always found it interesting how collectors put a premium on oversize cards, which, to me being off size, conceptually are no different than undersized cards, which many collectors frown upon. Of course I recognize that the more oversized the card, the less likely it was trimmed. But if one has a card with a pedigree that makes one reasonably confident it was not altered, I would prefer the regular sized card.

Are we now talking about the HOF Wagner that has not been graded or the Graded PSA 5(MC) ?

I was talking about the HOF Wagner.

Here's a picture of a similar strip.

the "only" strip?

Extremely well stated... but "absurdity" might be an understatement.

Cut that strip up and you have an oversized Near Mint Bowerman with proof marks.

Brian

I thought Keith Olberman had the strip pictured. I think the 0000001 copy was just an oversized border.

I wasn't saying it came from this particular strip. I just posted it as an example of what the strip may have looked like that the card came from.

As I recall from looking at the strip years ago, those five cards are a mock-up and each is an individual card glued to a backing to form the strip, thus the line between each one. A sheet with cards would not have that line between the cards.

As an addendum, no one has ever seen the "sheet" that the Wagner is rumored to be cut from, nor any other T206's in sheet form. It was just a regular T206, albeit slightly large enough to cut down.

Most likely that is the case. There are before and after photos and Mastro did say it was trimmed. I think most people who are familiar with the case believe that Mastro trimmed the card on two separate occasions.

The problem I have is that if the story is correct, a full sheet would not only be worth 2-3 times more than the Wagner itself at auction, but more importantly, solve a lot more questions than answers we have about the set. If the card was actually cut from a sheet (and I believe it was) than that's probably one of the biggest travesties in the Hobby.

I did enjoy the book The Card very much, but I think the authors need to revisit it and add a chapter on the aftermath and Bill Mastro and Doug Allen's trial.