Wagner T206 Auctioned in 1981
 

I found this item in the July 31, 1981 SCD. The Wagner item description was interesting in this Lew Lipset Auction :

Haha... "trim to a mint card"

That's some rare honest advertising. ;):D

Lew's Ex+ to Ex-Mt = VG at best

"Watch you talkin bout Willis?" I don't even want to have to explain that quote...

Are you saying that Lew was a little "generous" in his grading? :p

Tell you what, just reading the auction ad makes a lot of us salivate... I would love to see the final hammer on the items in that auction. Back then, the final hammer prices may have seemed a bit outrageous, but today, we'd all call them a steal.

Makes you wonder if this is "the" Gretzky/McNall Wagner that is also PSA cert number 000000001. If so, does that mean that someone with a last name that starts with "M" was the winner of the auction?

Wouldn't that more likely be the Jumbo Wagner that's a PSA 5(MC) for being oversized?
I thought the Mastro Wagner was cut down from a strip of 5.

Correct, that Wagner was cut from a panel of 5, I was wondering if this was after the initial cut. I didn't follow that panel of 5 story so I don't know when it was cut from that panel. Pretty sure it could have had generous borders. It probably could be the Jumbo Wags. Lew could tell us...

Trim
 

Wow. Trim "if 'someone' wanted"...and right now it's likely sitting in a PSA 5 holder in 'someone's' safe deposit box.

I believe the Wagner might actually be Lew's own. I believe he sold his about that time. From his description, I believe it might have ended up 40 years later in a recent Goldin Auction. Just a suspicion. That's all.

I thought the Gretzky Wagner was cut from a full sheet of T206 cards and that didn’t happen until the mid-1980s.

I do not think that it is the Gretzky Wagner. It is probably the Jumbo Wagner.

Would love to know more about that "Wagner cut out from a strip of 5" story! This is new to me!

Did he go to the Larry Fritsch School of Grading? I bought one group of T213s from Fritsch where a Cobb with a punch hole was described as VG. After returning that lot, I couldn't help but wonder what a Poor card looked like?

The irony is that in the 70's Lew used to rail against hobby dishonesty in his monthly TTS column and elsewhere. I met him once, at a big show on Long Island (Nassau Coliseum) decades ago where he had a table and I bought all three Encyclopedias from him. Tried to talk to him as the cash was forked over and he just kinda growled and turned away. I remember thinking this guy should be on top of the world, what's he so grouchy about?

Same experience here. The one time that I met him, at a show, I checked out the cards on his table, and decided to purchase a T3 in low condition that was in a plastic sheet. His interaction with me was a bunch of grunts...I don't think he ever looked at me, he was busy with something, his head down low. As I was walking away from his table, I noticed that the sheet he handed me also had another, much nicer, T3 on the back side. I went back to the table and pointed out the mistake. Once again, not a word, and no expression of surprise or gratitude, he just yanked the other T3 from the sheet and went back to ignoring the world.

brianp(arker)-beme

I bought a few vintage cards from him back in the late '80s and when they arrived, always found that they had been overgraded... cards that were VG had been listed as EX. But while Lew may not have been the most accurate grader or the most congenial, there's no question about his contributions towards the understanding of vintage cards.

if the winner of the auction would like to make a tiny profit please pm me.

In all seriousness, thanks for sharing!!

Come on guys!... pls don't flop this thread to against Mr. Lew Lipset. Lew is one of the legend!

While I never dealt with him in person, I had many interactions with Mr. Lipset

through mail, telephone and email. He was always courteous and helpful.

In all fairness, I was probably in my early to mid 20's when the 'T3 at the card show' incident occurred that I described earlier. He may have just been one of those 'get off my lawn' dealer types when it came to young'uns.

I definitely recognize his contribution to the hobby, and on here I have probably mentioned his Encyclopedia of Baseball Cards books in my posts more often than anyone else. But really, not even to thank me for instantly returning a card he accidentally handed to me for free...?

Brian

Has this card ever been verified to have been pulled from a cigarette pack ? I have heard about "cut from a sheet " and "has large margins" and "being trimmed " etc. sounds like more of a proof card than a regular issued card. Need T206 experts to respond . Has anyone seen an" average Joe's" collection or relative's estate of T206's or an " attic find" and a Wagner was in that Lot of cards ? I haven't. Need T206 experts to respond. Thanks

Clearly you weren’t on the wrong end of one of his blatant misrepresentations, to put it nicely.

Great hobby books when there were none but that doesn’t give an excuse.

That's a pretty harsh take for mine.

Back in the day dealers were all over the place in their descriptions of condition.....some were on the super generous side and a vg-ex card could arrive looking ex+ or better, others called a vg card ex+. Others were what we might call more orthodox in their estimations.

As long as you knew the dealer and their tendencies you had no problem, it wasn't as if their grading assignations changed card to card or week to week.
You knew quickly that they were consistently accurate to your estimations, undergraders or overgraders and you could then decide if the price matched your valuation.

This was waaaaay pre grading companies and people had their own preferences for what made a card attractive.
Back damage wasn't as vital if the paper loss was small, and great centering/registration/color could be considered more important than vg ish corners when assigning a grading opinion.

Think it's pretty poor calling out someone from that time and generation for their take on grading, or whether they were brusk in their social interactions.
Not everyone has to want to break bread and be a hobby friend to not get the name muddied on a collector forum, especially when taking in their contributions to said hobby.

Yes, there was one auctioned in Woodbury CT early 90's? Late 80's? I forget the year. Probably late 80's as T206 resource shows sales back to 1991.

It was a couple days after Thanksgiving, and I grew up in Woodbury. Family still in the area, so I had to go to the auction. They had a pretty big batch of T205 and T206 that had been stored in a cigarette carton for a long time. Most were pretty worn.
The collection included a Wagner.

They actually held the auction briefly a big money buyer could get there for the card. He was running late.
It sold for 30,000. And was sold a couple more times between dealers over the next year or two. It was very subject to advertising "grade creep" being appropriately f-g in the original auction and ending up being called g-vg (No alterations, just hype)

I bought a t205 minor leaguer.... At least I have a card that was in the same box as a Wagner..

$30k is pretty amazing. I wonder what card now we'll be looking back on in 30-40 years and saying the same thing. It will be hard to eclipse the media and collector attention Wagner has brought.

Lew was always kind to me, but I was a young preteen guy working in a card shop and he liked that I knew what questions to ask. I was ignored at many a table back then and though outstanding customer service is not uncommon, I would bet that table profiling is still alive and well in the industry. I would also agree that Lew graded his cards more fairly to himself, but that was pretty much a standard and still is("undergraded") for the seller.

The Wagner that is the subject of this thread is owned by and currently on display at the HOF. It sold in Lew's auction in 1981 for $25,011, which at the time was the highest price ever paid for a baseball card. It subsequently ended up in Barry Halper's collection, where it resided until MLB bought a portion of the collection for $8M and gave it to the HOF.

I would grade the card ex to ex+. It is significantly oversized, and has the best corners of any unaltered T206 Wagner (though one of the corners might have a crease). It is a gorgeous Wagner!

Lew was quite a pioneer and we should be grateful for his endeavors, but his grading could be a couple of full grades off. Never in the right direction.

I'm sure if I sent in that card it would come back "ungradable" due to size.

Corey: So that card is currently in the HOF ? It has never been graded ?

Yes. That is correct.

Ah, so this is the only card I've seen in person.
https://scontent-dfw5-2.xx.fbcdn.net...3d&oe=5F9C3D9F

Corey - Thank you for sharing that information on the Wagner.

My pleasure.

Lew did sell me a big group of hobby publications that used to be Ray Medeiros’s. He used to lurk on here, but I don’t know if he still does.

During the 2014 National in Cleveland, the "Chesapeake" Wagner was on display at one of the auction houses. They had just concluded a TV interview and I asked if I could get a picture with the card.
Larry
https://www.net54baseball.com/pictur...ictureid=28949

Chris,

I'm going to guess that most people making comments about Lew's grading and auction lot description accuracy are not trying to "dis" Lew. Most of us have the utmost respect for him. I continued to bid on items in his auctions even though I've won lots in the past that were "generously" graded and in one case a complete set that was missing 6 cards (out of a set with less than 200 cards - none of the missing cards were key cards).

Lew has contributed so much to the hobby that a lot of us just let it go. Besides, if we really were that aghast of his lot descriptions, we could easily just not bid on things. As for being grumpy, I can see it, but he always seemed willing to spend a little time on the phone (as long it wasn't in the middle of the last day of an auction) to go over questions people would have.

It'd be interesting to know when hobbyists believe the hobby just turned to crap and was more about the Benjamins.

That auction description was such a cool start of a thread - brought back some fun memories.

I don’t need to quote everything

I’m not referring to the good old days prior to grading but rather 10 years or so ago. Too many folks ripped off on eBay and few would complain or make returns because “he’s one of the legends of the hobby” crap. He took that as a license to steal. Enough said.

I hope he sues your ass.

Many of the pioneering dealers were surly, grumpy or just rude to collectors. These men just were not meant for a face to face business model. Mail order was more their speed. Goodwin Goldfadden, another famed early dealer, was horrible to kids and novices especially. Not really surprising since what they were doing was considered weird and perhaps a bit skeevy by the 99.9995% of Americans who had no idea there were card collectors. Same was true of a lot of other collectibles pioneering professionals: the people who gravitated towards those activities were not doing so because of their great social skills. Comic book shop operators, for example. This comic book dealer wasn't a card dealer but could've been and eventually was:

https://photos.imageevent.com/exhibi...0guy%20yaz.jpg

Or try an early Star Trek convention if you want to see some socially deficient people. I know because I was one of them...

https://s1.dmcdn.net/v/2Eqg61GH_7m47zJpZ/x1080

As for when it became about the money, thank this guy:

https://beckett-www.s3.amazonaws.com...-Mint-Ball.jpg

His move from coins to cards was the best and worst thing that ever happened.

Just my two cents
 

As I remember it, dealers at the early shows and on the phone were the same mix of humanity you get anywhere, from the barely civil to the warm and helpful. In my one interaction with Mr. Mint, he was rude and I never spoke to him again. For several years, I would visit his table to say hello and chat with his helper ("The Exhibit Man,"--Steve Reeves, who had a shop in Kensington, Md, I frequented) and Rosen would never even look over. He would sit there with nothing to do looking in the opposite direction once he had seen that I didn't have anything to sell, just to be an asshole. I did enjoy watching him peel off hundred dollar bills, however, faster than the eye could follow, and remember feeling sorry for those who happened into his lair with their boxes full of stuff I knew they could do much better with at practically any other table at the show.

I'm assuming the panel of 5 still exists. I saw at the National some years ago. It supposedly came directly from Wagner. Anyone know where it is now?
http://www.t206museum.com/page/periodical_32.html
This is the last I've seen of it
https://www.sportscollectorsdaily.co...brings-316250/

If someone didn't look at the picture or return the card, that is on them, not the seller and it is not stealing. One poster grades the HoF Wagner and EX+, I grade it as VG, it has paper loss on two corners. It is one of the nicer Wagner's, but it is still VG. That doesn't imply anything negative, we just have different grading standards.

I would say the same about PSA and the other grading companies. I often disagree with the grades they assign to cards. I have had cards in the same submission that I have felt were undergraded while having a card I thought was overgraded. When buying I look at the scan. If I don't feel the grade by the TPG is correct, I pass on the card. It doesn't matter if it is Lew Lipset, who I bought quite of few cards from both at shows and thru the mail, or some new dealer that I have never done business with. With raw cards I have no problem returning a card if the condition isn't reflected in the picture and description.

VG? Wow, it looks nicer than that to me, unless it has wrinkle that I am not seeing. I wish that all of my VG cards looked like that.

So trimming in 1981 was perfectly acceptable?

Do you not see the top layer of paper is missing on two of the corners?

Yes. It looks like typical T206 corner wear to me.

Not on any of the cards in my set. I wish I could get that type of favorable grading from PSA.

Aaaaand, that's exactly why you don't condemn with sanctimony over grading.
I'm exactly with Rats, it's a 3.5 for me at best and never a vg-ex because of the paper loss and wrinkly bottom right corner.
Another long time collector above who has had some of the great cards in the hobby has it as ex-ex+.

If it's not a Wagner but a $60 common, no one thinks it's in particularly good condition for a T206. My opinion, of course.

But that matters not a jot.
If I'm happy with the price of the card in its state, regardless of how we are both assessing said condition, then it's a win for both parties.

Like I said, it never takes long to work out how a particular dealer tends to evaluate his cards. Most tend to be pretty consistent in that manner.
Still a shitty take for mine to pillory someone in the manner that has been done in this thread for the reasons given.

Lew sold my father's Wagner, the "Jumbo Wagner" via auction in 1984:

https://beckett-www.s3.amazonaws.com...ral-Jumbo.jpeg

Gorgeous!:cool: