Most overrated pre-war card?

[rats60]

Originally Posted by Vintageclout

Ruth Rookie Overrated? Not even close. Let's use the T206 Wagner to squash that theory. Simply stated, there are currently 60-70 known examples (approx. 45+ graded) of the T206 Wagner. The Ruth Rookie including all backs currently has nearly 110 encapsulated copies (with MANY crossovers I might add), and an estimated 200 - 250 existing specimens (including raw examples). Therefore, it certainly appears the quantity of Ruth rookie cards is 4x higher than the T206 Wagner. Now pricing. A nice "VG/3" Wagner sold for nearly $1.3M two years ago (with beater "1's" now achieving $400K!), and a well-centered "VG/3" Ruth rookie fetches approximately $60K, give or take $5K. So this "so-called" overhyped card that represents baseball's unquestionable greatest player ever as well as one of the most iconic AMERICAN heroes currently achieves price tags that are a microscopic like 5% of the T206 Wagner, with the number of T206 Wagner's tallying to approx. 25% of the Ruth Rookie count!

I've never heard of anyone questioning the iconic stature of a T206 Wagner. Considering Babe Ruth ultimately towers above Wagner in overall prestige, I would safely say that the current pricing points for a Ruth Rookie card still have a long way to go before they achieve their due justice, justifying why the Ruth Rookie still stands as an UNDERRATED card in terms of value.

JoeT.

The T206 Wagner is the key card in the most important baseball set made. The "Ruth rookie" is from an obscure set that is lightly collected. There is no reason for it to carry a premium over other Ruth cards and it didn't for a long time. The Wagner has been the holy grail since people started collecting baseball cards. The Ruth "rookie" hype is even more recent than the irrational rookie card craze of the 80's-90's.