This T206 Honus Wagner Will Be Sold At Auction No Matter What.
 

The upcoming Robert Edwards Auction will have a restored T206 Honus Wagner that has been in three recent auctions but did met the reserve and has not sold.

It will be very interesting to see what this card ultimately sells for.

Check out the story here: http://www.sportscollectingnews.com/home.htm
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<img src = http://www.sportscollectingnews.com/10.jpg>

I'd buy it. If it wasnt restored. Also if it wasnt slabbed as "authentic". And of course, if I was rich.

the restored status will knock down the final price but boy does it look nice!

I think it looks great. Just me, but I'd take that over an ugly "unaltered" one every day of the week at the same price, and it may go for less. We shall see...

Like it a lot better that the shellacked trimmed one.

If
 

Based on the image above, what do you feel it would grade if it wasn't restored?

I'd say a 4 or 5.

Tony

Restored pieces will often scan/photo well, but in hand, the restoration is obvious - surfaces don't have the same gloss/wear. It certainly looks nice, but it's really tough to say without having it in hand.

Matt,

do you ever find that sometimes the opposite it true? I photograph items in my collection and I find the camera can be harsh (especially with proper lighting or the flash). I have seen items photopraphed that look better in person.

Absolutely. With this one, I was thinking that when looking at a T206, we unconsciously make certain assumptions - e.g. that the white border is the same card stock and gloss all the way around, because every original T206 we've ever seen tells us that's what a T206 looks like. Only when seeing it in person, would such an issue be discernible.

has wonka's name written all over it

If it weren't restored, I'd guess that it'd be a 4. I can't see it reaching a 5 with those corners. It could get dinged to a 3 or a 3.5 depending on the surface anamolies, but 4 would be my guess.

$14K in restorations
 

So the last sale was at $222K, and then another $14K in restorations. The question is, how much will that restoration ultimately cost? Anyone here think it will sell for over $200K?

On a side note, is there a way to un-restore it... or would that be a re-restoration? ;)

Pre-restoration scans
 

Here are the pre-restoration scans from the REA listing:
http://www.robertedwardauctions.com/...ges/11891c.jpghttp://www.robertedwardauctions.com/...ges/11891d.jpg

The black borders look kind of funky, I would think that would be the easiest part to restore.

It's pretty amazing what they did from trimmed version to the slabbed version though.

Yes.

Amazing restoration work. The question I have is how much of a card do you have to have to "restore" a card and not be "creating" a card? If only Wagner's face was found and a restorer created the rest of the card, is that an authentic Wagner, or something else? Could one start with a trimmed Wagner like this and, by dividing it in two, create two authentic restored cards?

honus
 

it is beautiful but i still wish they'd left it in its original form.
with 'excessive' restoration, these 'creations' begin to look like one of those picture cards in the old Masterpiece game.
still 'twill likely go over 200k---'cause folks have the money.
best,
barry

I think it looks terrible
 

I am honestly not sure what you guys are looking at, i think it looks amateurish in its restoration. Black lines aren't straight top obviously painted. If I could afford a Wagner I sure wouldn't be buying this one.

I had no idea the card had been restored to that extent. Such a large percentage of the card isn't original anymore. I'd prefer the original also.

Glyn I see it totally opposite. After seeing the original, it is even more amazing and beautiful to me. Beauty's in the eye of the beholder I guess :D

The card just gives off a fake air. Something fishy about it that doesn't pass the smell test. I think if I had it in my collection, it wouldn't be for long.

I predict we see it come around again not long after this sale. Maybe the following year? It just seems like someone with $200K to spend isn't going to want it sitting in this card.

$200,000 + ?
 

It will be very interesting to see if the hobby is going to go in this direction--there are more than a few instances in coins where a very rare gold coin had a hole punched into it long prior to its achieving real collectible value to use with a chain as jewelry, with the coin later being restored and retaining value in direct proportion to its rarity and popularity. Very, very interesting!

My bet is that it will top $200,000. Just having a "real" Wagner puts the collector in the upper echelon of the hobby.

Larry

the franken Wagner rears it's ugly head again....

My opinion.. "you can put lipstick on a pig... it is still a pig!"

I was also wondering the same thing.

On this certain card, they did a little more than "a touch up".........but there is no doubt that it will still sell for a large amount of money, because of the hype of a T206 Wagner and the fact that there aren't many available.

Clayton

Well short of $200K
 

REA has ended, and I had asked the question if anyone thought it would go over $200K (since the pre-restoration sale was $222K and restoration costs were $14.5K).

Well, it fell well short at $160K (before BP)... any thoughts on this?
http://bid.robertedwardauctions.com/...x?itemid=18282

Bummer for the consignor.

I was sad to see that they "restored" that card. Now its unoriginal and fake looking, so I was glad to see the card sold for less than expected. Hopefully this will help discourage this type of modification in the future.

Sad, looks like suzanne summers... How much would it cost to remove the prosthetics?

This T206 Honus Wagner Will Be Sold At Auction No Matter What.
 

I'll start the bidding at 99 cents. :-)

Well, looks like I was off by about twelve grand, but still pretty substantial bucks paid. I do think we'll see more of this. Someone just bought the 1907 Wolverine News Cobb batting position with a big chunk missing for $400 on e-bay, a pretty tough rookie card of Tyrus, and my bet is that he already has or will be looking for a common with similar front shading to use as a donor to fill in the missing piece, as the back of the cards are all the same, at least when the value rises to make it more than worthwhile to have the work done by a professional paper restoration expert. Frankly, the thought occurred to me to do the aame thing, but REA occupied most of my focus during the time the Cobb card sold. Let's see what transpires.

Larry

It looks fine to me. But since I (and I'm assuming most of those who post here) don't have the money for such a card, what I think doesn't really matter much. My feeling is that most of the negative feedback is the same old "purist" POV that comes out often enough here, as if there is only one TRUE way to collect vintage cards. Personally, I think it looked like crap before.