ESPN: Famous Honus Wagner card sells for record $2.35M

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Posted By: Zach S.

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=2781059

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Posted By: Damian Anderson

I posted a thread about what this card would go for if auctioned months ago. I think I said 5M or 2M but can't remember. I think I am biased now that it sold in the 2M range, but I think I said 5M. Can't find my post in when I do a search I can't find it, help!! I hope I said 2M and not 5M. Either way not long before it will be a 5M card IMOHP.

Damian

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Posted By: Zach S.

I agree. It certainly doesn't show any trend in decreasing that's for sure.

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Posted By: Zach S.

Damian,

I found the thread you were talking about.

http://www.network54.com/Forum/153652/message/1169093324/

Zach S.

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Posted By: Glenn

Any chance the new owner will cross it over for an AUTH grade from SGC?

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Posted By: David Smith

If that were to happen, would PSA be on the hook for the $2.35 million purchase price??

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Posted By: davidcycleback

"This particular one was preserved in spectacular condition," said the PSA President.

An interesting choice of double meaning word in my opinion, as the word 'preserved' conjures in my mind things in altered states like pickles, jams and embalmed bodies. Dracula preserved (and entombed, interestingly enough) his victims.

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Posted By: Damian Anderson

Thanks Zach for the leg work. I was pretty sure I predicted 5M and didn't want to admit. This thread is going to go miles and miles. Here we go!! Leon, try and make sure the parachute works!!! It's gonna be a dozzie!!

Best Regards,
Damian

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Posted By: Hal Lewis

Come on...

surely SOMEONE on here can tell us WHO BOUGHT IT???

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Posted By: anthony

there go my chances at owning a psa 1...just bumped the price from 200k to 400k

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Posted By: Dave

You mean it wasn't you? I was ready to offer congrats this morning. LOL

Dave

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Posted By: barrysloate

Didn't the article state that SCP Auctions bought a piece of it? If true, it may be so that in the future Sotheby's would get a shot at reselling it.

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Posted By: Damian Anderson

Maybe it will be cut up into a hundred pieces and put into cards as an insert buy "Stupid Deck". They could also cut up the case and flip and put it into cards. Good idea!!

Damian

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Posted By: Dave

Since "alot" of folks believe this card to be trimmed...IF it were sent to SGC to crossover, would SGC slab it nrmt as well....or give it an authentic label? Would the prestige of the card be too overbearing to allow SGC to just stick it as authentic?

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Posted By: Marty Ogelvie

scary synopsis but probably not far from the truth with Upper Deck.

martyOgelvie
nyyankeecards.com

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Posted By: Pennsylvania Ted

Have no fear, the buyer is not about to crack the plastic on this card
and re-submit to another Grading Co.

It would be quite interesting if this occured; but, it never will.

Unless, all the members of Net54 pool their $$$$ and buy this card.
Then, do you guys think all of us would arrive at a consensus to crack
it and submit it to SGC ?

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Posted By: barrysloate

If we pool our money, buy it, and cross it over to SGC, we better be prepared for the worst!

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Posted By: Dave

I truely don't believe that SGC would have the ***** to do anything other than pretty much a direct crossover from what PSA has the card at. There is no way that "the card" of the hobby...the most famed individual speciman of "the card" would ever go into a SGC Authentic slab....no way.


Obviously I know nobody is going to try crossing it to begin with.

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Posted By: barrysloate

I think SGC would return it to the owner as is, and tell him you probably don't want to go there. They have to treat it like any submission, and make an objective decision.

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Posted By: Dave

And I believe....SGC would welcome the attention it would receive having the Wagner in a SGC 88 holder...

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Posted By: barrysloate

This is a very provocative discussion, and I wonder which way they would go if they had any reservations whatsoever.

Edited to add SGC has a strict buyback policy, and if they make an error by slabbing an altered card, and they missed the alteration, they agree to refund to the buyer the purchase price. Any further thoughts in light of this?

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Posted By: Glyn Parson

I had a discussion with Dave Forman, whom I have known for about 16-17 years, about this very card. He told me that their is not a grading company out there that would not slab this card. This leads me to believe SGC would be happy to grade the card.

Edited to add: This was before Dave purchased SGC.
Also added: They said collector was from LA area, did Don Louchious buy it?

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Posted By: MVSNYC

i had information a few months back that the card sold for over $2M to someone "outside of the hobby"...meaning NOT one of the big well known collectors...

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Posted By: Josh Adams

Why does there seem to be the assumption that the card would receive an "AUTH" from SGC?

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Posted By: Joe D.

It wasn't me.

(thats one less person on the list of possibles).

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Posted By: Dave

There are many people...as well as quite a few on this board that believe the card is trimmed...thats why I asked the hypothetical question about crossing it over for the SGC guys

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Posted By: steve

My jeez ! 2.3+ Million for the best card in about a total population of about 60 known examples !!! Just goes to show that Demand, not supply, rules the card world. I have a couple Wagner's that are highest ever graded (Colgan's regular PSA 8 & Tin Top SGC 60), if auctioned maybe on a lucky day hit 2 Thousand, not 2 Million. Overall real good for the T206 market - keep your nice HOF'ers tucked away.

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Posted By: Josh Adams

Dave,
Thanks.

So it's really just speculation?

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Posted By: MVSNYC

guys- we all know that NO ONE is ever going to crack this out of the PSA slab...

i can't stand this "trimmed" debate...i have owned several very high-end, unaltered PSA T206 cards, that measure smaller than this wagner...this ongoing discussion is annoying.

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Posted By: Mark

a fool and his money....will soon part.

m.

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Posted By: Dan Bretta

I personally don't think it's trimmed....the rest of the card is in such great shape it's hard for me to believe that the corners of the card were rounded enough that someone decided to trim the card.

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Posted By: Colt McClelland

What strikes me is that, assuming Brian Seigel owned the card for approximately 7 years and paid $1.265M, he had an annualized return of about 13% by my calculation. That's obviously not bad. However, considering the risk and liquidity issues associated with this collectible, I don't think it can really be viewed as a home run from an investment perspective. I guess another way to look at it is to say that maybe the new owner is getting a very good buy at this price.

I know that no one is really trying to say this was a home run investment here, but I just thought it was interesting to point out the actual return on investment. A gain of over $1M sounds great at first blush, and in reality it's not bad. However, there are certainly a lot of other investments that would have done much better over the last 7 years and probably with much less risk.

Also, I didn't have time to go back and do all of the calculations, but my guess is that this 7 year period of ownership is among the lowest yielding periods of ownership for this card in terms of annualized return on investment.

I'm not trying to start a debate of investing vs. collecting or anything like that. I just thought this was interesting to point out.

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Posted By: Leon

I believe the sentiment, from very long time hobby veterans close to this card, is that it was cut from a sheet much later than the mfg date. My personal opinion is that SGC would be reluctant to put a numerical grade on it...due to their guarantee. I could be wrong as this is only a guess. best regards

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Posted By: peter chao

Colt,

The scary aspect of all this is that it may actually lead to a slowdown in the market for T-206s. During the 7 years there were many T-206s that doubled in price, now that we find out that the Gretzky Wagner didn't even double, this should lead to slowing of appreciation for other T-206s.

Peter

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Posted By: Scott Elkins

This card was originally found on an intact "uncut" sheet in a FL flea market. There was also a Plank on the sheet - it is now in a PSA 8 holder as well.

To make a long story short, these cards were cut from this sheet then ended up in Bill Mastro's hands (who bartered the price down b/c of the "wavy top border" of the Wagner), then Bill sold the Wagner and Plank to Copeland and the rest is history.

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Posted By: barrysloate

While the yearly return may have only been 13%, I know the owner got tons of joy and publicity owning it, and that is worth something too. He was generous with his time, and took it to schools and shows and everywhere else to display it. If you had a bond that paid 13% a year (not a bad bond at that) you would stick it in the vault and never look at it again.

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Posted By: Josh Adams

An uncut sheet? sounds kinda cool. Any photos of this uncut sheet? Or any uncut t206s sheets in general?

"many hobby veterans?" Who is considered a "hobby veteran?" Seems like an arbitrary title. Sounds like "Government Official X." Without any evidence of someone who actually saw it, such statements seem like speculation, which is ok. Don't get me wrong, not ripping, just wanted to understand why some people said what they said. And I have. Thank you
In the end, it doesn't matter much, because I will not be plunking down a million bucks for a baseball card.
Perhaps the Dorskind Group bought the card? We don't know how many members make up said group, they could have pooled their money! LOL.

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Posted By: Dan Bretta

Scott, I would love to hear the florida flea market story....there has to be a story right? Who found it there? What did they pay for it? Why did they cut it up?

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Posted By: Scott Elkins

Hell, I was banned from bidding in Mastro auctions for a while for talking about this! When I quit collecting, I cleaned out my filing cabinet and threw out the folders of info. I had on this card. I had all the names of people involved going back to the "find" at the flea market.

I do know a couple of people who have probably as much, if not more, info. than I had on the card now. One is well known here - he contacted me to see what info. I had left a year or so ago. I also know that there is at least one individual, whom has been in contact with me over the past few years, who is doing a book on the card - should be interesting as he has done his homework (in fact, the other person who posts on here has done his homework as well and has a TON of info.). I will not post their names - they can if they want to.

I am done with this subject!!!!

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Posted By: E, Daniel

I have ever heard such a detailed and confidently spoken accounting of this card's history........any reason Scott that such a complete picture is just now being offered, we've all dined on such meagre morsels in the dark for so many years?

Daniel

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Posted By: David Smith

OK, so here is another couple of question; which would you rather have, the uncut sheet with Wagner and Plank or the cut cards? Which would be worth more, the sheet or the individual cards?

Personally, I think an uncut sheet with both Wagner and Plank would be sooo cool if mounted properly and displayed on a wall but that is just me.


David

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Posted By: peter chao

Guys,

On the bright side of all this is that the Gretzky Wagner card has reclaimed it's position as the most valuable piece of Baseball Memorabilia in existence. Surely, it is more valuable than the 3 million that McFarland paid for McGwire's home run ball.

Peter

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Posted By: MVSNYC

peter-

what are you talking about? the wagner almost exactly doubled...this is very good news for T206 collectors...

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Posted By: peter chao

MVSYNC,

The Gretzky Wagner went up $1.1 million which is lots of money, but it did not double. However, go through your T-206 Hall of Famers in your collection, try to recall what the prices were back in the year 2000. My guess is that at least half of the HOFs doubled during that period of time. So there were lots of cards in the set that did better than the Wagner as an investment during the 7 years.

Peter

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Posted By: Dave

I think with the card going for 2.35 million...while maybe not doubling is a huge jump. Obviously with the current market value for it, the Wagner can't keep doubling everytime it is sold...lord it would be selling for $20 million by 2015. Have to keep in perspective the amount of money we are talking about that it would take to "double" this card.

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Posted By: MVSNYC

peter-

1.25 to 2.35 is close enough to "doubling" in my book...

over the last 15 years it has gone up by a factor of 5!

$451K ---> $2.35M

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Posted By: Bob

Anyone want to hazard a guess for the difference in value between this slabbed Honus and an uncut sheet with the Honus on it? Just curious...

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Posted By: Dan Bretta

Lordy!!! Now I'll never be able to sleep until I know the details of this Florida flea market deal.

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Posted By: peter chao

Dan,

Your a true historian, that's great. The rest of us are thinking about the bucks involved and your more interested in the historical route that the Gretzky Wagner traveled.

Peter

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Posted By: MVSNYC

i am torn about whether or not the uncut sheet would fetch more or less than the two seperate cards graded PSA 8 (wagner & plank)...?

the uncut proof sheet from Halper only sold for $75,000, which i think was the deal of the century...BUT that says to me that peopel really prefer to have the actual card, not an uncut sheet...

how much do the uncut lajoie goudey sheets fetch?