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runscottI have been looking for the elusive "blue-eyed Wagner" for many years, always suspecting that it existed, but until now unable to prove it. As a "Wagner only" collector, this has been a search akin to the search for the "Ark of the Covenant", so as I type these words with sweating hands, you can imagine my exhilaration coupled with apprehension. Could my dream finally be realized?
The story that has been passed down to me through several generations of "Wagner only" collectors goes thusly:
While it has always been accepted that Wagner had brown eyes, the great Honus himself, on his death-bed, called to his side his male nurse (my great-great grandfather) and whispered in his ear "dark contacts". Since at the time contact lenses had not yet been invented, my ancestor was completely befuddled. Still, he remembered the words and passed the story to his son, and it eventually came to me, told to me by my father on my eighteenth birthday, as has always been the family tradition.
For years I thought that "dark contacts" referred to shady business partners, or perhaps Wagner had said something completely different - "dork contracts" or something similar. But about five years ago I was reading though a Wagner biography and I learned two crucial facts: all of Wagner's child-hood photos showed light-colored eyes, and he had a passion for technology, investing heavily in automobiles and other cutting-edge areas. It was not difficult to imagine that Wagner might have met an early contact lense pioneer while travelling, and perhaps invested in the technology. Indeed, Adoph Fick, a Swiss physician first reported the use of contact lenses in the year 1888, when Honus was only fourteen. I feel certain that Fick must also have been a baseball enthusiast and perhaps even attended Pirates games in order to watch the famed shortstop while visiting the U.S. in search of financial support for his new invention. It is not hard to imagine that Fick might have met with Wagner and asked that he try out a pair of experimental lenses. Because they were made of glass, Fick undoubtedly introduced a dark dye into the lenses in order to cut down on glare, which would also have aided ballplayers playing games under the bright sun. My understanding is that Wagner very seldom dropped a pop-fly after the year 1905, and never wore sunglasses.
Many believe that the scarcity of the t206 Wagner is due to Wagner's disdain for tobacco, and that he demanded the cards be pulled from the market once he knew that his image was being used to promote cigarettes. But we know that Wagner enjoyed the use of tobacco from time to time, so a much more likely scenario is that when Wagner discovered the "blue-eyed" premiere card, he demanded that they all be destroyed and replaced with a "brown-eyed" version, so that no one would discover his "brown contact lense" secret. The American Tobacco Company simply took too long to comply and Wagner refused to accept their apology and endorse the new "brown-eyed" version.
Please let me know your thoughts on this. Meanwhile, I plan to raise funding to purchase all known t206 "brown eyes" and return the color of their eyes to the rightful blue color.