2002 Topps 206 Wagner Bat Relic Cards
 

Anybody else notice this auction that ended earlier today.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/284804084891

The ending price stunned me, especially since it wasn't even a TPG graded card. And anyone have thoughts on this possibly not being a legit auction? Seeing an ungraded card like this going for a price I've never seen one go for before, and won by a bidder with "0" feedback to boot, doesn't raise questions in anyone's mind, does it?

Yeah the price does seem out of line for what I've seen them sell for in the past. A graded PSA gem mint 10 of the same card sold for $310.70 in a 2016 HA auction. Also there were supposedly 300 of this particular Wagner bat card produced, There are two other Wagner bat cards from the same set a blue and Red version that supposedly only had 25 of each produced.

Exactly right. There are three different versions of this card, and this yellow frame/orange background one is the most common at 300 cards supposedly produced. And given the manufactured rarities they produce today, I don't view 300 of something as particularly that rare.

And like you, in the past I've seen these consistently going in the $300-$400-$500 range. Given the recent market surge and all, and the fact it is a Wagner bat relic and T206 image, I could see if these were maybe starting to go for double what they were, but suddenly going something like 15X-20X previous prices.....WOW! And like you said, the other two versions are even rarer.

Makes me wonder what the Cobb bat relic card from this 2002 Topps 206 set would go for nowadays. There's only the one version of that card (with a "bat off" T206 image), but you never seem to see one of those come up for sale at all.

I'm not 100% certain, but is that 2002 Topps Wagner relic card the first ever GU bat card for Honus ever produced? If so, maybe that helps explain the suddenly crazy price for it. Maybe it is being viewed like his GU rookie card. Never even thought about that before, but could that become a new collecting thing, collecting the very first GU cards issued for a particular player, and treating it like another type of rookie card?

Maybe they are getting hot Bob, I haven't been paying much attention to them lately until your post and I see one went for $1026 in an auction on ebay in march and there was another one that had a starting bid of $250 with an $850 BIN in march that someone hit the BIN on. And there's this one up for auction now that's already at $2,250
https://www.ebay.com/itm/18542199723...4AAOSwsaFifIB3

A Cobb bat card sold for $543 back in February so it would be interesting to see what one would bring now.

I have this Bazooka back that's #d to 30 that I pulled from a pack when they originally came out. I want to keep it but if they start trending like the bat card I might have to part with it.
Attachment 516838

Call me a skeptic, but Topps doesn't even say that this is from a bat used by Wagner.

Wording:
"You just received an authentic
GAME-USED BAT CARD
of Honus Wagner
from Topps206."

Granted it may be a "game-used bat" card, and the card is "of" Honus Wagner.
Even if we accept that the unidentifiable piece of wood is from an actual game used bat, unfortunately they don't actually say that the piece was from a bat used by Wagner himself though.

Contrast that to the wording from a 2000 Upper Deck Babe Ruth Legendary Lumber card which states "On the front of this card is an authentic piece of game-used bat used by Babe Ruth in and official Major League Baseball game."
Still a bit of faith required, but UD is at least on record stating that it was used by The Babe.

I hear you, but I'd be real surprised if the Topps 206 relic card was purposely worded like that to deceive people and it was not actually from a Wagner game-used bat. Topps went out and purchased around 4,000 original T206 cards to insert into packs, and did GU bat and jersey inserts for quite a few modern, as well as T206 era players. Why would they spend money for real T206 cards, but then not bother to get legit game used items from the players they were placed on cards with? ALL the GU relic cards, both modern and T206 era players, have the exact same wording. Also, each of the GU relic cards has that sticker, each with a unique number on it, to supposedly help guarantee the legitimacy of the card and relic. I sincerely doubt Topps would go to all that trouble, and risk the bad publicity that would follow, if they really didn't use game used bat and jerseys from the people they insinuated they were from on their cards.

I see how someone could possibly question the wording, but I really think you're misinterpreting the semantics. LOL If Topps really didn't use a legit Wagner GU bat to produce those relic cards, I've got to believe that would have been leaked to the public eventually, which would then discredit them and cast doubt on every other GU relic card Topps would issue from that point forward. Topps definitely would not have wanted that.

I wouldn’t be surprised and to be honest I personally believe the deception is on purpose….that’s me I don care for cards that are not originally from a players playing years especially relic, bat, eyelashes, etc

Pat, I hope so, but I can't see that kind of a sudden price surge though. Those recent sales you noted are where I thought things were at on these Wagner relic cards also. Why would one suddenly go for almost $7K, and not even a graded one at that, and to a person with "0" feedback? And I also saw the other Wagner bat relic card auction you referenced, that is currently running and closes on 5/21. That $2,250 high bid it is currently sitting at is way over the past market for these as well. What you may not have noticed though is that the current high bidder on this second auction ending 5/21 is also a person with "0" feedback. Could it possibly be the same person with "0" feedback that won this other Wagner bat relic card for the $6,901?

Additionally, there also appears to be other bidders on this second Wagner relic card that were also bidding on the one that just ended over the weekend, including the person that appears to have been the underbidder on that first Wagner bat relic card at $6,801. Pretty easy to tell they are the same bidders by looking at the feedback ratings. Too coincidental to have multiple bidders in both auctions with the exact same feedback, right?. So I'm going to be really curious to see how this second auction ends up on the 21st. Both of these Wagner bat relic cards are ungraded, so there is no difference there. But if the underbidder at $6,801 doesn't come back to outbid someone on the exact same card, currently sitting at a third of what they were supposedly willing to pay for it just a week earlier, I'm going to be really suspicious that there was something not quite kosher going on.

Both auctions are with different sellers, with each having over 1,000 positive feedback. So at least on the surface they appear legit. I'm also going to watch the feedback on the winner of the Wagner relic card from last Saturday, as well as the current high bidder on the Wagner that ends on the 21st. They are both currently at "0" feedback, but assuming the auction sale from last Saturday was legit, you would expect that the winner would be required to have paid that $6,901 winning bid long before the second auction ends on the 21st. And as such, you would also expect the seller to pretty quickly give positive feedback for such a big purchase. So if suddenly the feedback on the winner of that first auction jumps to "1", that would seem to further indicate it actually was a legit auction. And if the feedback for the current high bidder on the second auction suddenly goes to "1" also, that would be pretty good proof that the two bidders on both auctions are actually the same person.

But if both of these auctions end with a high bidder having "0" feedback, and neither of them goes to a positive "1" feedback anytime soon after they ended, I'm going to call BS on both auctions as ever having been legit. The only question then would be, what exactly were the people behind this possibly trying to accomplish. I guess we'll have to wait and see how things play out over the next week with this second auction. I actually would love to see these be legit auctions, as I've got an orange background Wagner bat relic card, as well as a red background one, and one of the Cobb bat relic cards as well. Good luck with your Bazooka backed Wagner as well then.

This 2002 Topps 206 set, as well as the following year's Topps 205 set, have always been underappreciated and undervalued, IMO. Especially with some of the GU and autographed cards. And the real T206 and T205 cards that Topps inserted with both those issues are absolutely great. The fact that Topps came up with that unique, modern sized card holder to insert the smaller tobacco cards in, was genius. The look and presentation of them I feel is great, and they do go for a premium over raw T206 and T205 cards.

I do believe that it is very purposely worded.

I don't think that they are trying to deceive, but more so protect themselves if/when they screw up, or in the event that the source of the bat deceived them. I am not confident that they necessarily always do their due diligence in acquisitions.

And I'm pretty sure that I understand the semantics.

OK, in that case I can better see and understand where you're coming from. My comment about the semantics was assuming you were more concerned with them purposely trying to deceive people because they knew the bat pieces were not from a Honus Wagner game used bat. At least, that was how your original response came across to me, because it never mentioned anything about them protecting themselves from possibly being lied to in acquiring a fake Wagner GU bat.

You might be right about this Bob, The zero feedback bidder has bid it up to 6k now and this one and the one that sold 9 days ago have the same top 3 bidders, the one that sold from $1250 up to the $6900 and this one from $1325 to 6k are the same 3 bidders.

Pat,

It turns out to be even stranger than this. After last posting I found out there was a third Topps 206 Wagner bat relic card up for auction on Ebay also, and this one ended yesterday, 5/20. And surprise, surprise, the top bid on that one when i found it was $1,900, by guess what, another bidder with "0" feedback. So I went further and checked the bidding history of this "0" feedback bidder, and lo and behold, in the past month this "0" feedback bidder made a total of 5 bids with three different sellers. And it is the exact same bidding history for the "0" feedback bidder in all three of these Wagner auctions. So it is the same bidder in all three of these auctionafter all.

And as you mentioned, the underbidder on the one that ended last week on 5/14 for $6,901, is the current high bidder on the Wagner relic card auction ending tonight, at $6,100 for now. This time the "0" feedback person is the underbidder. Here's the real rub though. The third Wagner relic card auction that ended last night never had this underbidder from the first auction place a bid on it. It ended up supposedly selling to the same "0" feedback bidder for only $1,900. How in the hell could this underbidder, who has put up bids of over $6K on two different of these Wagner relic card auctions now, miss and not bid on a third Wagner bat relic card auction ending right in between the other two? The auction that ended last Saturday, and the one ending today, both have had over 30 bids placed on them. The one that ended yesterday only had 4 bids placed on it. I'm not sure how people were searching for this Wagner relic card, but something must have been off on how the one ending yesterday was listed. But I easily found it, so what gives?

Meanwhile. I reached out to the seller of the Wagner relic card from last Saturday, the 14th, and asked him if he ever got paid. He actually got right back to me and we had a bit of a conversation about what was going on. He said when he saw the winning bidder had "0" feedback, he was immediately concerned. And that concern was reinforced when he told me the winning bidder hasn't paid him, nor ever responded to any attempts he made to contact him/her. He didn't even know about the other two auctions until I told him. He mentioned maybe trying a "2nd chance offer" to the underbidder, but I warned him that that underbidder was going strong on the Wagner auction ending tonight.

That underbidder from last Saturday actually looks like a legit bidder. From what I remember, right after that auction ended last Saturday, the 14th, that underbidder had a "2,093" feedback rating. Last time I looked earlier today, his feedback was now at "2,100", so he has been actively buying and paying for things on Ebay this whole week, and getting positive feedback for it. That to me indicates he is a legitimate bidder. Why he is willing to pay $6K for this Wagner bat relic card is beyond me though. In reality, the Wagner relic card auction that ended last night on the 20th, at $1,900, looks to be a much more plausible and realistic idea of where this card may actually be value-wise right now. Why this one "0" feedback bidder was putting such ridiculous high bids on auctions from three different, seemingly legit, sellers, for this exact same and somewhat obscure Wagner bat relic card, is totally beyond me. Will be interesting to see if this underbidder from last week ends up winning tonight's Wagner bat relic auction, and if he/she does, if positive feedback ends up being posted to tonight's seller, sort of indicating the sale went through and the item was paid for.

These Wagner bat relic cards come up for sale somewhat infrequently, so three of them ending in one week is extremely unusual. And then when you factor in the obviously strange bidding going on, it starts to take this whole thing out of the realm of just unusual coincidences. Something sems to be going on, but I have no real good idea what it is. LOL

Bob,
This is what I think is most likely going on with this 0 feedback seller. He probably has one or more Wagner bat relic cards and he opened a new account on ebay to bid a couple up to create a false price level and he's going to eventually list one or more that he owns with high BIN's with another account he has.

I think his bidding has already had an effect on the prices if the $1900 sale is legit, as far as I remember I think the most recent sales have been in the 1k neighborhood.

That is what I was wondering as well Pat. What is so strange is how he somehow lucked out then and was able to do this to three different auctions for this same card all at once. I don't ever remember seeing more than one of these Wagner bat relic cards up for auction on Ebay at the same time in years, if not decades. And to have an underbidder supposedly willing to go to $6K+ on two of them is absurd. Like you, I figured these Wagner bat relic cards would be in the $1K range, at best. But then to have a third auction of a similar card that it seems no one legitimately bidding in the other two auctions can find, this is just too weird.

Anyway, it seems there was only the one underbidder willing to go to the $6K level on these, and with him/her winning that auction for one last night for $6,100, I would guess they've scratched their itch and aren't going to be bidding on any more of these going forward now.

I've heard others here on the forum discussing how the new, younger collectors out there seem to be really up with and into looking at comps when preparing to buy cards. So, if this one "0" feedback person was trying to establish a new, higher comp, they hit the jackpot with three of these cards being sold at virtually the same time. In which case we'll have to wait and see if there are suddenly other Wagner bat relic cards from the 2002 Topps 206 set appearing on Ebay at high BIN prices. If this supposed price manipulation is really what was happening, I can't believe the extent to which some people will go to make an extra couple of bucks. Unreal!!!

Anyway, here are the results of the three Ebay auctions for similar 2002 Topps Wagner bat relic card, in the order in which they ended, if anyone wants to look at what was happening for themselves.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/284804084891

https://www.ebay.com/itm/125316357421

https://www.ebay.com/itm/185421997238

Never sold shill bidding

Octavio,

The jury is still out on the auction that ended last night at $6,100. That auction winner was the underbidder on the very first of these three auctions, and seems to be a legit bidder/buyer. I'm going to watch the feedback on the seller of that last auction to see if he/she ends up getting positive feedback from the winner. If so, that would tend to indicate the $6,100 was actually paid and maybe the last of these three auctions actually resulted in a real sale. Although paying that much for one of these Wagner bat relic cards is insane to me.