T206 Gretzky McNall Wagner Appears To Be A Proof

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Posted By: Dave Hornish

As I was going through my collection of clips today, I happened across this article from the 4/7/95 SCD issue. It was written by Ted Taylor and, while I was first attracted to a quote from Bill Mastro about how all known T206 Wagners have been found between NY and DC, the full article yielded the attached gem, which seems to confirm this card was cut from a proof strip.

What do you think?

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Posted By: Matt

Dave - good find!

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Posted By: Marc S.

it is just his "opinion"...which is different than fact.

Many / most here have expounded their theories on the Wagner card in the past. There seems to be a very large group that ascribes to Mastro's theory and/or that the Wagner was subsequently trimmed from initially being oversized.

No one at PSA seems to know (or is willing to admit) who graded the card, which seems surprising given that it launched the company.

All that said, some have shyed away from purchase of that Wagner due to questions...and if recent sales prices mean anything, all of this discussion and controversy over the card's origin only seem to increase its notoriety and, ultimately, its value.

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Posted By: Dave Hornish

Wasn't Mastro the guy who did it?

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Posted By: barrysloate

It's generally been believed that the Piedmont Wagners never made it into circulation, but I don't think it's a proof because it is a finished product with no signs typically found on a proof card.

It's possible that just at the time the Piedmonts were about to be released into circulation, the word was out that the card had to be pulled.

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Posted By: Frank Wakefield

Ahhh.... but my understanding is that the first of the white border tobacco cards to be released were Piedmont 150 cards. Where's Ted Z and Scot R, we need them to comment on this.

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Posted By: Adam

"No one at PSA seems to know (or is willing to admit) who graded the card, which seems surprising given that it launched the company."


I do not have it in front of me, but I believe "The Card" book identifies the person who graded the Wagner card. It was a person now in Texas I believe.

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Posted By: barrysloate

Bill Hughes was supposedly the grader of the card.

Frank- you're right about the Piedmont 150's going out first, but I still don't think the two known Piedmont Wagners can be considered proofs. Proofs rarely or never are finished products. So these are something else.

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Posted By: Ted Zanidakis

The PIEDMONT brand T206's were 1st in print and most likely the 1st to be inserted in Cigarette packs. The PIEDMONT brand T206's
were certainly the most produced of all the various T206 brands.

Also, the PIEDMONT's were the 1st to be withdrawn due to errors (Magie and Joe Doyle NAT'L).....and, in the case of Wagner's "anti-
cigarette" objections.....and, Plank (due to a possible conflict with the American Caramel Co.).

However, for unknown reasons, ATC was slower in withdrawing the SWEET CAPORAL 150 (Factory 25) cards of Wagner and Plank that
followed. Therefore, a few Wagner's and Plank's went into circulation.......anyway, that's my theory.

TED Z

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Posted By: boxingcardman

His opinion is that the P150 Wagners were never issued; he confirmed that The Card was cut from a sheet.

Sic Gorgiamus Allos Subjectatos Nunc

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Posted By: Frank Wakefield

Barry, I agree it does not look like a proof... I would not consider it such. Proofs usually have those centering marks.

Thank you, Ted. Maybe American Litho pulled the Piedmont cards at the direction of American Tobacco, but neither realized that Wagner and Plank were going out in Sweet Caporal, too... Who knows?

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Posted By: Dave Hornish

Yeah, it does seem like it's from an uncut strip rather than a true proof. I wonder though if Bill Mastro's memory could be jogged a little if this story is shown to him. Ted Taylor may remember it as well. I'm just surprised it wasn't something more easily recalled when the card was graded (what year was that?; I have the book but have to dash).

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Posted By: John

Ted;

Do you really think Wagner was pulled due to his issues with tobacco, he appears in t-card sets after T206 and was a known user of tobacco products…he even had tobacco products with his name sake….

I think the whole tobacco being an issue for him is a myth IMO, there had to be something else going on here I think....your thoughts.

John

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Posted By: Jon Canfield

Not that I'm defending "the card" or Bill Mastro, but maybe the SCD article or us Net54 readers are taking what Mastro is saying out of context. I assumed in my first read of the article (and I believe that many others here are drawing the same conclusion) that Mastro is referring to the Wagner being cut from a proof strip later on. In fact, it may be his belief that the Wagner was cut from a sheet by the printer in 1909.

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Posted By: Dave Hornish

I think Wagner was pulled because he was promoting Cigars and his appearance on cigarette cards was unacceptable. I also think the cover story was invented that he didn't want the kids to associate him with cigarettes as a result.

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Posted By: Trae R.

I do notice what appears to be a portion of a proof mark on "The Card", but it doesn't seem to be centered properly, so who knows.

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Posted By: davidcycleback

The other Piedmont resembled a scrap, with rough cut, I think oversized and with ghosted overprint (printing error). Most scrap singles we see were handcut from sheets and can be oversized. Scrap sheets were error or mistake sheets that didn't meet quality standards and were thrown away. Many people mistake scraps for proofs (or call them proofs when selling), though the best known T206 proofs are significantly different than the scraps you find on eBay, as the proofs are blank backed, on different stock and with alignment marks in the borders.

If Mastro really said the card was cut from a strip (and I said 'if' as he isn't directly quoted), that would essentially end the popular chat board debates about this card. If the card was cut from a strip as Mastro is said to have said (and I read what I read and I like green eggs and ham), the following question would be when PSA will switch the grade to the appropriate "authentic" sheet cut grade (audience laughter).

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Posted By: Ted Zanidakis

The longer I'm in this hobby....the less I believe the Wagner anti-cigarette "myth".

Why does he appear in FOUR cards in the T216 set....for instance ? ? ? ?

And, he can smoke all the Cigars he wanted all his life....my answer to you John....is NO.

As I've said in previous posts....I think Plank (and yes, Wagner also) were withdrawn due to contractual conflicts between
American Caramel (who portrayed these very popular players first) and American Tobacco.

TED Z

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Posted By: leonl

True proofs, from any series that I have seen, rarely have the players names on them....I can easily think of the T3 Proofs and the several T206 proof(s) that I have seen recently which don't have names on them....

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Posted By: Marc S.

that half of the T-206 proofs that I've seen (which is decidedly a limited subset) have names on them. But they all very clearly have the printers marks on them....and they would not be easy to remove (a la Kevin Saucier). I only own one proof -- and when I traded for it...the name on the bottom or not was a significant deciding factor for me.

Marc

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Posted By: Jeff Shepherd

Perhaps the Wagner falls somewhere between a proof and a final product released to the public via cigarette packs. Companies have been known to save samples of products/promos/advertising for their archive. One we all know that comes to mind is Topps and their "Vault" of past relics. Among the proofs and original artwork, they seem to have saved at least one final piece from a good portion of their product lines - many in uncut sheet form.

Fleer was another company that was rumored to have saved one of everything (Dubble Bubble Gum included). Most of it got tossed in dumpsters in the mid-90's, although a bit was salvaged.

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Posted By: davidcycleback

"I didn't take steroids and if I did I thought they were vitamins."

"The T206 Wagner wasn't cut from a sheet and if it was it's a proof."

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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.”

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Posted By: Dave Hornish

I think the only way for Mastro to know it was cut from a strip is to have either witnessed or performed this action himself. "Authentic" would certainly seem to be the propoer grade if true.

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Posted By: Bob Beyerle

I drink beer, but that doesn't mean I'd want my likeness promoting it to kids- (especially for the paltry promo fees they got in those days), any T card set Wagner was in was marginal (T216). He's missing from T3, T202, T205. But he's in all the candy issues? And it was about the money? ($10 bucks for a guy making 10 GRAND a year). Read Bill James on Wagner, read a few of the multiple Wagner biographies. It was not about money. My guess about the Louisville cigar was a young,shy Wagner helping out a local friend (probably reluctantly). The other Wagner cigars most likely were bootlegs or not released at all (in the bands case).

As for "The Card"; anyone claiming it hasn't been trimmed (from a proof, sheet, advertisement poster, or whatever else) can not be taken seriously.

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Posted By: Anonymous

There are two issues concerning the PSA 8. First, whether the card Alan Ray owned was cut from a sheet. Second, whether it was further trimmed prior to being sold to Copeland.

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Posted By: boxingcardman

These are reuses of candy set images, right? That would explain why Wagner ended up in there despite his apparent stated aversion to tobacco card uses; they reused the images.

I also don't see a disconnect between Wagner smoking cigars and not wanting to promote smoking to kids by licensing his image for cigarette cards.

I don't buy the money angle; it is well documented that Wagner sent the promoter ten bucks so as not to be out the fee; not the act of a cheap man.

FWIW, I do not buy the candy exclusives argument as to Plank or Wagner. If the caramel company was getting exclusives, doesn't it make sense that it would use the same form contract for everyone and get exclusives from the other players? And what about the myriad other cards featuring these players? My hunch is that Plank, like Wagner, never signed the ATC's consent form and that someone at ATC or the printer belatedly realized that he had not signed and ordered production stopped.

Sic Gorgiamus Allos Subjectatos Nunc

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Posted By: Paul

If you take the article at face value, it is crystal clear. Mastro "confirmed" that the Gretzky Wagner was cut from a sheet. That means that Mastro either saw it being cut from a sheet, or had other proof that he felt was reliable -- perhaps the word of the person who cut it from the sheet. The only "opinion" offered in the article by Mastro is that none of the Piedmont back Wagners were ever publicly released.

So, it seems pretty clear to me that there are only three possibilities: (1) the card was cut from a sheet, (2) Mastro was relying upon bad information and the card was not cut from a sheet, or (3) SCD's writer misconstrued what Mastro said. It would be interesting to hear from Mastro himself on this.

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Posted By: Jason L

I don't know anything about all this talk concerning tobacco and contract disputes,...I had always understood that Honus didn't approve of the image because it made his nose look too big.

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Posted By: Jeff Shepherd

From the Mastro November 16th-17th, 2001 sale - lot #350, pg.124 - maybe this has been brought up before. The writeup for this lot leans quite heavily in favor of this card being issued in a pack of cigarettes:

"...this is the only card in the entire original collection of 500+ T206's which has a slightly irregular cut. The provenance of this card, examination of the collection from which it originates, and examination of the card itself allow us to know with virtual certainty that this card was issued and packaged in exactly this form in a pack of Piedmont Cigarettes in 1909."

Yeah I'm a bit lost on their "virtual certainty" deduction. Hand-cut, then inserted in a pack? In regards to Piedmont-back Wagners, it does mention the Gretsky PSA 8, and one that possibly sold in the Trader Speaks in the 70's for $3876.00 - with this offered lot being the presumed third Piedmont Wagner.

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Posted By: leon

It's certainly not unheard of for an early 20th century card to be handcut from the factory. The front/back combination of Wagner/Piedmont gives more credence to the possibility, imho. Here are a few factory hand cuts from a different series for comparison.

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Posted By: Jeff Shepherd

Yes, perhaps hand-cut at the factory - but actually inserted into cigarette packs? I know this was during the early stages of the release of T206's, but you're talking about the largest, perhaps most streamlined tobacco company in the world - in addition to the comparably massive American Lithographic Co. It's just hard to fathom a sloppy finished product considering their desire for a superb set of cards - especially during the initial release...but who's to say what quality control was like back then.

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Posted By: Brian

I am quiet convinced that the frameless T212-1s were hand cut then inserted in packs. I have no idea on other issues (T206), but I do believe it happened with the 09 Obaks.