[charlietheexterminator]

It was late 1978 or early 1979, I was working for a fur dying & dressing company called Meisel & Peskin Fur Dressers, located in Brooklyn, NY, Union Local 122. It was my first adult job and I was the youngest guy working with a group of old-timers. This group of guys were straight out of a movie. They drank, gambled and talked sports all day. When things were slow we played poker all day. One day during poker we were talking about baseball cards and my Dispatcher, his name was Emil (Red) Weiss, an old-timer, said do I know about the Wagner card. I said sure do, that I have purchased many t206 cards from my local coin store for 25 cents each in the early 70's. Red then stood up, pulled out his wallet and slowly pulled out a Wagner. He told me his father owned a saloon back in the day and he would clean up at night and go through all the empty cigarette packs on the floor. This is how he came up with the Wagner. The first words out of my mouth were (do you want to sell it). He replied sure, for $500 it's yours. The Wagner had its share of creases even though it was protected in a thin plastic. I thought $500 was a bit too much, so the negotiation started. I was earning $200 a week take home and this was good money at that time but not enough to afford the Wagner. Red would not budge on his price, so I had to come up with the money. I wound up getting the $500 from a loan shark that worked with a different division of Meisel Peskin on the 2nd floor. Now I owned a Wagner. My girlfriend called me an idiot, but still married me in the summer of 79. Now it was late 1979 or early 1980 and I read in the daily news about an upcoming baseball card show in a Manhattan Hotel. The day of the show, I grabbed the Wagner and a buddy and headed to the show. I was thinking about selling it but had nothing to go by regarding price. When I arrived, I showed the card to the first dealer as we entered. It didn't take long, I had a crowd around me. The gentleman running the show ask if I would like to put it up for auction. I said sure as I needed the money with a child on the way. The final price was $2,200 or $2,250. I remember getting home and slapping the money down on the table and saying to my wife, (who's the idiot now). I talk about it all the time, she is tired of hearing it. A few members here know the story already. Oh well. It's Wagner #17 on t206Resourse.