I have a Honus Wagner Sweet Caporal with a blank front that was accidently printed with the portrait of Bowerman.

Brian

Like I said in an earlier post...there is a case for that....a sliver of yellow...the letter "G"....SOMETHING....that card has NOTHING going for it....someone trying to turn $30 into $5,000. That is it.

Beat me to it.:(

There is a line in the sand between puffery and dishonesty. This one crosses that line. Not the worst transgression I've ever seen, but still not cool.

I don't think it's a matter of embracing one's heritage or not, more a question whether it's appropriate to initially identify someone by reference to racial/ethnic background.

My black friends referred to me as "the white guy who drove the black honda". I had no problem with that. I am not going to talk race anymore on this thread. I will talk about a Bowerman card trying to pass himself off as being worth $5,000 due to being Wagner's neigbor on the sheet. What will the next craze be - all yellow background T206's because they share the same color as the Wagner???

Now this would be worth 5k.

http://i.imgur.com/ErIrg5W.jpg

Ask the scrap men, I am sure they will come up with something? :D

Omg....
 

I just read this thread and I'm still peeing my pants!! this is soooooooo funny....:):o

Has anyone been able to find a single other example – of a miscut or misprinted – Bowerman - or Brown (portrait) – that contains a part of the card that could be Wagner?

38 days until the auction. Long time to look.

Hysterical leap IMO and at a minimum puffery.
Tells me what they think about the average T206 "oddity" collector.
But OTOH I am rarely surprised at anything in any AH description anymore, way past that.

Reminds me of an ad I saw in SCD many moons ago; "1952 Topps Mickey Mantle Error card - Blank Front and Back

+1 Agree!!

Brock, is this your consignment. You seem to be the only one defending this pos.

HAha! Nice one, Chris!

Man, if that card actually existed I'd imagine Johnny's head would literally explode from the excitement. :D :D :D

No.
I just don’t understand what all the hubbub is about, with the exception of the very funny and witty commentary.
I think the description is straight forward.
Actually I think it shows the strength and intelligence of the house to present the card in the manner in which they have. Straight forward and carefully worded, qualified, explained.
If you do not want to spend the money, then don’t bid.
I would rather have a card that is - possibly a partial Honus Wagner card – than some academic variation, that is of little historical value - and may even consist of a dot on a common player card.
But everyone is entitled to spend their money how they wish!

LMFAO!!!!! What?!?!?! I have a 1952 Topps Jake Pitler card!! It could have possibly been in the same pack as a Mickey Mantle card!!!! I shall auction it off - starting bid of $25,000.

Leon, I respectfully think you are off base on this one. Huggins and Scott is an auction house and their own integrity is on the line. Now it is clear to me that they have no qualms about BS-ing potential new hobbyists to make a few bucks. My trust in them just went out the window. The odds of their regaining my trust are about equal to the odds of that being a partial Wagner on that $5000 card.
JimB

Earlier I thought who would buy into this yarn anyway....behold Net54 has once again come thru and delivered my answer. :)

Brock on the off chance you care or perhaps just don't know. Let us know I and others would be happy to explain why this is so off....way off.

Cheers,

John

Well said Jim agree.

It should also be noted that this card was recently purchased from T206 Museum.

http://t206museum.com/page/store_bkmiscut.html

Josh

+1

Crazy.

Hi John,

I understand very well the arguments relating to the percentage chance that the card contains a partial Wagner.

I will say though – that in now a dozen posts in this one thread – you have restated in different words that the offering is “way off”.

In your 13th post in this thread, why don’t you clearly state – why – you - feel it is “way off”.

This is just stupid that they would do this. They have totally lost my respect.
The back of any Wagner has nothing to do with the value and it clearly does not show any of the front.

I think this is a fair opinion pertaining to the card...... All of the other rhetoric being spewed makes for good reading :).

John,

I just re-read your statement: “I guess this Bowerman was next to all the other machine or non-handcut cut Piedmont Wagner’s we have floating around.”



I want to point out one important fact that escaped you – and that has great import with regard to assigning a percentage chance that the card contains a partial Wagner.



It has been stated, that Wagner cards - WERE PRINTED AND THEN DESTROYED.



So it is Not that only 50-100 Wagners were printed. Indeed Wagners may have been printed for weeks/months. There may have been thousands or tens of thousands. Given the speed of communication at that time, this may in fact be likely.

It appears that to avoid legal action, the company ordered that the Wagners be “destroyed”.

But the Bowermans, that may have been printed next to Wagner, were not destroyed.

T206 Wagner partial back. Really Huggins & Scott?
 

Source?

Even if that small % of ink was meant for the back of a Wagner, which it was not, it is in no way any % a Wagner.

I've found this thread really amusing, hopefully it won't devolve like a few others have. Johns ad is one of the funniest things I've seen on her in a long time.

I've also given it a lot of thought, and I'm a bit more ambivalent about the auction than most.

I think describing the card as maybe a partial Wagner is a long stretch right now. .
Perhaps in a few years with more research it will be less of a stretch. Maybe even provable someday. But that day is years if not decades away.

Brock has some good points.
We don't know how many were printed
Or what method was used to stop production and destroy any remaining.

But.......
We can make a few good guesses.
There are very few Piedmont Wagners. I can only find references to two, I'd assume maybe another 2-3.
SC Wagners come with both factory 25 and 30 backs. And there are quite a few of them compared to Piedmonts.
The sales figures are approximately known for both brands.
So it's possible to estimate the total number of 150 series cards.

It's likely that SC production of the sheet including Wagner was stopped, probably quicker than weeks or months later. Communication between major cities wasn't all that slow. And there are a number of 150 series cards that show production was either stopped early (Magie) Or stopped and plates redone. (Tinker hands on knees, maybe a couple others)
The numbers lead me to believe no set of plates was run much longer than 3-4 weeks,
I think the Piedmont Wagners are most likely printers scrap, finished fronts used as setup sheets.

The sheet layouts aren't known, not even the overall size. There are some good theories, but nothing proven yet.

It is possible to group each card by small differences in the fronts.
It might be possible to also do that for the backs, but aside from a few major consistent flaws like the plate scratches it's not certain.

So, perhaps someday it will be possible to know what both cards of a miscut back are, but not now. And I doubt there are enough Piedmont Wagners to ever make something like this provable.


I'll leave the value of something like that up to each individual, many of us wouldn't care, some would. Just as some of us would care about a minor caption problem, and some don't. Either view is just fine.

Steve B
PS - Can we all just stop valuing brand differences like Drum and Uzit ? At least until I have one of each? ......didn't think so...

"It has been stated, that Wagner cards - WERE PRINTED AND THEN DESTROYED."
:eek::eek::eek:WHAT!!??? This is important!! Please indicate where this information came from. I'm calling "Bull$hit"!

Someone please correct me if I'm wrong (I may well be), but I thought all of the Piedmont Wagners are hand-cut. Since this particular Bowerman is factory-cut, wouldn't that preclude the card next to it from being Wagner?

Edited to add: (Or at least strongly argue against it.)

Yes correct hence my statement above Scott. We have no factory cut Wagners with Piedmont backs.

The bottom line is - is anyone here going to bid $5,000 for this $30 card!?!?!?!?!?! I can't wait to see the outcome of this auction!

Hi John,
Sorry, I didn't mean to be redundant. Must have missed your earlier statement to the same effect.
Scot

But there could be one in a closet somewhere, or in a parallel universe, so it's still POSSIBLE this is a sliver of a Wagner back.

They weren't still using the Pony Express in 1909.

Count me among those who don't think this lot deserves any more scrutiny than many of the other pieces of nonsense over-hyped by the AH's. I am; however, curious what Brock would be willing to pay for it, in real U.S. currency.

Brock, I haven’t typed why its way off as I figured it would be a waste of time as you seem to be way into the fantasy world of belief with the Huggins Team on this. The only argument that Huggins is hanging their hat on is that this card must have been next to the Wagner because of the strip that once belonged to Wagner.

That proof strip is very cool but in no way is a final production sheet clearly that can be seen from the graphic elements missing from the strip.

Using this to assume this is how the sheets were laid out. Let alone make the claim that a factory cut production card has remnants of Wagner’s back is an absolute leap of blind faith at best if you’re a collector. If you’re an auction house with any shred of integrity its downright glorified unfounded bull.

Brock reputable auction companies don’t do stuff like this. You will never see an 18th dynasty Egyptian artifact that looks high-end and might have come from a royal court. Try and tie the item to most likely but not for sure belonging to King Tutankhamun. With some drawn out story about how they have pictures of Lord Carnarvon and Howard Carter in the tomb with a similar item so this one could be Tut’s.

There are countless other little nuances and bits of info taken over the years from collectors who share knowledge much is right here on the board to read. All of these also put further death nails in this cocked up story spun by Huggins & Scott.

Hope this helps….

What a surprise this has ties to Patrick Chan even more reason to run for the hills on this epic yarn. :)

Did I miss something? How does this tie to Chan?

Scot, you have forgotten more about these cards than I know...the day you need to say sorry to me on T206 stuff...that's the day I pony up my opening bid of 5k on a "partial" Wagner Piedmont back. :D

No worries brother.

Use the search feature you newbie. (Kidding) :D

Peter, you're right what about an attic? :D

i think brock and steve are looking for jobs as auction puffers...I'd send resume's directly to huggins and scott!

Better a puffer than a fluffer. At least with the former, you're only trying to get ahead.... :eek:

This is nothing short of another enterprising seller trying to exploit T206 collectors' desire to own a piece of the famed Wagner card without delivering an actual piece of an actual Wagner card.

"But it cannot be reasonably said that this is not possibly a partial Honus Wagner." Wrong. This is not possibly a partial Honus Wagner card because there is no evidence that Wagner's front ever appeared on it. A Wagner is made by the front, not the back.

I'm not saying the card is what they it might be. There's so much against it that it really shouldn't have been written up like that without a lot more than a maybe preproduction maybe uncut strip to back it up.

I am saying that someday having something far more solid might be possible.

But probably not for a Wagner/Piedmont.

Just the compiling pics of the plate scratches has shown some subjects that can't be from the same sheet. Eventually we'll know more.

Steve B

But you'll never know that the front of this card has a Wagner on it. Whether a card was cut from a sheet that had another card on it is fun to talk about, but doesn't make a Bowerman a Wagner, partial or otherwise.

"But it cannot be reasonably said that this is not possibly a partial Honus Wagner."

That is unequivocally the worst equivocal description I have ever read.

Maybe Panini or Topps will bid on it, chop it up into 100 pieces and make a special commemorative insert card out of it.

1/100 Gold Refractor Diamond Inlaid rare Bowerman/Wagner remnant card. Maybe they can even throw a half signature of Ted Williams on the same card for good measure.........or better yet, just one letter of his handwriting and include a JSA Basic Cert..................but you have to send it in along with $75 to get the Full Certificate.

Oh, the endless possibilities. :D

Totally agree. It uses double negatives to try to make a positive, without ever saying the positive, which would be:

"But it CAN be reasonably said that this IS possibly a partial Honus Wagner."

Again, just not true.

I agree for the most part with your points here John, however, as I was reading through the thread and forming my own opinion a thought came to mind.

Some of you may venture from time to time over to the memorabilia side, more specifically the game used memorabilia side of not only the board here but of the hobby as well, but some of you may not. My observations are that in general vintage equipment, uniforms and to a degree pre-model bats all (baring rock solid personal provenience) are determined to be "game used" by nothing more than conjecture based on a set of at times very lose criteria.

Outside of personal provenience, its an educated guess at best based on a set of limited available information if a pre war jersey or piece of equipment is in fact game used. Yet, that doesn't prevent auction houses and other companies from authenticating the pieces and labeling them as being genuine game used equipment when they're consigned. They are in fact making a very similar leap of faith with a lot of the vintage pre war "game used" equipment that gets consigned and auctioned. The information available to authenticate these pieces is sparse and pretty limited if not non existent in some cases. Just because a glove matches the type/style used by Ty Cobb, or a pre-model bat matches the kind of bat used by Lou Gehrig does not grantee that Cobb or Gehrig every touched that piece of equipment let alone use it in a game. Yet they can be authenticated as such because they meet a set of limited and sparse qualities and attributes.

I'm not saying this is right or wrong, I'm just stating that the same type of assumptions and leaps of faith are made all the time by auction houses when they auction vintage game used equipment.

I would say that owning this card would be about as exciting as standing next to someone who might have had sex with the most attractive woman on the planet (the assumption being made because he at one time lived next door to her sister).

Boy, the stories I could then tell my friends.

Partial Wagner/Bowerman Back
 

I rarely post and just read the nonsense that goes on with posts like this and get a good laugh. Can't believe I've actually read this entire thread but, having done so, I noticed there are some facts no one has pointed out yet.

As already noted in the thread, supposedly all the sheets with Wagner cards on them were to have been destroyed. If so, that means the Bowerman (and Brown) cards that were next to Wagner would have likewise been destroyed at the same time. The known Wagner cards are all supposed to be hand-cut which, since the Bowerman card in the auction is supposedly machine cut, would rule out the possibility it was actually printed next to a Wagner card on the sheet it originally came from. Still, assume the possibility that somehow the Bowerman card just looks to be machine cut and could have been next to a Wagner.

Are there any known Sweet Caporal backed Wagners that have a misaligned/miscut back on them anything like this Bowerman card? I personally do not know the answer to that but, if there aren't any, then how could there possibly be a Bowerman card with such a miscut/misaligned back that was next to a real Wagner card? You can't have one without the other.

BobC

Nice, Bob. You just rendered the 'Pony Express' communication theory irrelevant.