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Posted By: fkw

http://www.oldbaseball.com/refs/1930s.htm

This story below was originally from a subscriber to "The Card Collectors Bullitin" back in 1941. The last paragraph is the key to what might be true of why the Wagner card was pulled.

Wagner on Wagner

The Bulletin has been running Howard Myers’ still accurate 1938 checklist of the “#521 Series” (T206s) and Burdick writes: “The scarcest cards are Plank and Wagner. Amounts of 50 cents and $1.00 are being offered for these. All Southern Leagues are also uncommon and worth 5 cents to 10 cents each according to condition. A few others are also worth premium rates.” These prices are a bit academic in that there weren’t a lot of Planks and Wagners to sell – neither Burdick nor Carter had one. I don’t imagine you could have actually picked up the pair for $1.50 anyway in 1941.



Subscriber John P. Wagner reported that on August 12, 1941, the Pittsburgh Pirates played a game in his hometown against the Harrisburg, Pa. Senators and “I had the great pleasure of talking with old Honus Wagner. The lowdown on the cigarette card is that he would not let them put his picture on such cards since he did not think an athlete should smoke. I found the old boy is still pretty active and he gave me his autograph with fancy scrolls and letters due to our name similarity. I am sure glad to get the straight dope on this long unverified statement.” John Wagner went on to collect two Honus Wagner cards and gave one of them to Burdick in the 1950s so that it could be added to Burdick’s donation to the Metropolitan Museum. The two Wagners were about the same age at the time, 44. “Old boy” indeed! Burdick added: “It would seem that a few of the cards must have been issued before his edict became known. A second copy was found recently, also three more of Plank, the runner up in the short column. We wonder why the Plank shortage – in a 350 series.” Every other page of these Bulletins from the early 1940s seemed to have a golden nugget like this.



Wirt Gammon contributes a newspaper clipping: “Wagner refused $1,000 a week to go in vaudeville with Cobb and Lajoie. ‘I’m no actor.’ John Gruber, late official scorer in Pittsburgh was offered $10 for a picture of Wagner that could be put in cigarette packages. Gruber wrote Wagner, received this reply: ‘Dear John: I don’t want my picture in cigarettes, but I don’t want you to lose $10, so I’m enclosing a check for that sum.’ Gruber framed the check.”