If you found a Wagner...
 

Since this is the season of great finds, I was wondering what most of you would do if you were lucky enough to find a Wagner T206 in grand pappy's attic? Would you keep it and finish your T206 set or sell it for the million or so dollars?

As much as I love the set and would love to own the entire set. I would most definitely sell it.

$$$ I can get more T206 with it and let alone more important things like a house for my son, fiance, and I.

Interesting and cool question idea.

Probably keep...enjoy owning it, and then pass it down to my son.

To keep it I would have to hide it from my wife. $$$$$ are more important to her sometimes. I would have a stipulation I get to keep 25% of the final sale price to use for my collection. Probably buy a few rare OJs and a nice alternate Wagner, E103 E90-2 or D322, for my collection!!

Sell it and completely retire.:D

I am in the minority and think the T206 is a ugly set so if the $ stayed in cards I would sell it and own the nicest complete T210 set I could afford with the proceeds.

With my current financial situation, I would most surely sell. I would first make sure my 2 children have their colleges paid for. Then I would buy a few T3's and T206's and smartly invest the remaining to help my kids when they go to buy homes of their own.
Robert

I would keep it for a while, but ultimately I would have to sell it. It would be hard to justify keeping a baseball card worth twice what my house is worth, or more.

Sell:(. I couldn't afford to keep it properly. What would I do, put it in my box of cards?

Sell it after a year or so to fund my true collection, bills etc


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What would you do if you found it at a garage or estate sell etc and the owner didn't know what they had ? Would you 1) tell them the value of it ? , 2) Buy it for a few dollars and both the seller and buyer are happy with the transaction.

I would make sure it became designated as the

"Burke++ Wagner"

then I would increase the Monster Number value of this card to 480,

then I would sell it as the only MN premium card :D:D,

and buy a tropical prewar island.

Sell it. No questions about it. The lowest priced one is worth more than the house my family of 6 currently reside in.

Let the seller know and just hope they felt the knowledge was worth a finder's fee if they then chose to continue with the sell.

Good question. I would go with option 3. If the estate/garage sale was in a poor/middle class neighborhood option 1 without hesitation. Estate sale in a high end neighborhood option 2 without hesitation.

I couldn't sell it fast enough.

Sell it, buy my one white whale (1/10th value of wags) and use the rest to build up a decent retirement fund.

When my dad obtained his first Wagner in 1972 he immediately called my mother from a pay phone. He found it among T206's he purchased in a large lot for twenty cents each. It was also one of the last cards he needed to complete the set, so he was pretty excited.

He held that one until 1974 when he upgraded to a better one and sold off the original. Here they are below:

https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1446/...a402bdf189.jpg

https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1566/...d0e80dd82b.jpg

What if I told you you could sell it for $1 million today or $5 million in 4 years. Could you not wait 4 measly years?

Yup, that'd be the smart move.

id enjoy it for a spell...then sell and buy my dream house!

Personally I would sell today. In 4 measly years I could be dead, car crash, cancer, or a plethora of other really bad things could happen in that time. The old 1 bird in the hand is better than 4 in the bush thing.:)

I'd ask where you are getting your information from, and if you had some good stock tips as well.

No doubt I'd sell it. I don't trust the market for the Wagner to simply keep increasing in value forever and ever and ever. Plus I don't even like the look of it. I could maximize my own collection with a tiny amount of the profits, and not have to worry about money for the rest of my life. Easy, easy answer for me.

[IMG]I'd ask where you are getting your information from, and if you had some good stock tips as well.[/IMG]
LOL...just looking at past prices and guesstimating future prices. Certain cards (this one, 1952 Topps Mantle, etc), have NEVER gone down in value. Not saying they can't....just looking at what they have done in the past.

You could give it to me and then I would have a monster number of 1160.

As a Pirates fan and someone with 522 different T206's, I would definitely keep it.

I'd call LEON since he has all the contacts, tell him its 10 percent to him and let him sell the darn card

Great answers! Kinda (very) hypothetical, but fun to dream about, like winning powerball!

I would troll the site for a couple years showing it as a fake . Then put it on EBay starting at 99 cents .

What the crap??

Didn't the Wagner have some value in the early 70's... Maybe 1-2k??

Frank, I'm all in for a tropical prewar island, as long as Tattoo says "Da card! Da Card!" each time new auction winnings arrive.

http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/2016...4a7e48cb05.jpg

By the way, I did just find my Wagner. Not the one we are talking about, but pretty tough. If only scarcity=astronomical price! :D

Its a bit of a false equivalency. I could also sell it now, invest every nickel of the proceeds and hope to outgrow the value of the card 4 years down the road. You can make money in cards and you can lose your rear in cards too. Not many financial analysts tout cards as the wisest investment approach and that's not entirely without reason.

At a minimum, I can invest to hedge against the risk of a value drop or stagnation.

It did. My father brokered a deal to sell one for someone in 1973 for $1100. And then he purchased the "Jumbo" Wagner for $1300 - $1500 in 1974 after he drove to VT from NY to follow up on a lead for one. Prices rose exponentially from there.

First I would trim it, re-skin with a Cobb back, and then have it graded by GAI. Then, I'd consign it to Legendary, shill the heck out of the auction, only to win it back and put it on eBay for an obnoxious BIN price (and free shipping.) All of this in hopes of being the subject of the #1 thread ever on Net54. ;)

As a born and raised "mobilian" what's the story with the Wagner kid that played for mobile?

Really cool piece!

Thats a good question. If you are working on a t206 set and are lucky enough to have or receive a wagner I think it only makes sense you keep it. If you decide you are going to sell it I figure you might as well sell all other t206's you have I mean u had the ultimate prize and decided to sell it no use keeping the rest of the cards.

I'm not sure what the big deal would be...dudes are on EBAY every day with a found Wagner from Pa's attic.

Grade, then sell. Buy some sweet cards for a total or 3 or 4k afterwards, then let the rest sit in a bank account and collect interest. Finding the right bank, I could get at least 25k a year simply from interest. That would allow me to still have a job and have financial stability!

Josh, I don't want to completely hi-jack someone's thread, but take a look at the T211 thread, you will get a bunch of info about this set.

Ed

IF I found a T206 Wagner
 

Keep it for a week, then sell that Wagner!!!

I would keep it for as long as I could! Then I would have to sell it at some point. I would also be afraid of burglary if someone found out about it. Hard to enjoy it if it's locked up in a bank vault.

I could only hope that I would find two. One to keep and one to sell.:D

The best I've heard. Are you going to take the photo in front of a mirror? Someone has an example of that picture around here.


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Steven wins~ LOL!!

First thing I'd do is keep searching in grand pappy's attic. Maybe a case of 52 hi# Topps or a paper bag filled with Cobb/Cobb cards could be there as well. :D

Seriously, I would take a hundred pictures of it to prove all the future naysayers that I once owned it, then sell it, put 5% back into my collection and invest the rest for eventual retirement so I could someday have some time to really enjoy collecting.

Drew

How about assuming its a decent mid grade Wagner I find I could sell it and downgrade to the worst Wagner possible and use the extra cash for a T210 or two. JJ in particular.

Does that mean it originally came from a lake?
 

Since the T206 Wagner is such a small card I would probably just end up throwing it back into the lake.

But seriously, I would almost instantly start shopping it around to auction houses.

Hype
 

I would get with Joe O and hype the heck out of it on all forms of social media for awhile and then put it on eBay for $19.5 million BIN
I would certainly include the story in my description about finding it in grandpas attic because that is so popular. Then someone would offer me 20.5 mill and I would let it go regretfully. I would then buy an Aston Martin Vanquish and an island.

nice plan...ill come visit with my e121 babe ruth...but you'd better buy a big island...or a smaller engined car!!!!!

Hold for 1 year.... Take lots of pictures with.... Have parties at my house with it on exhibit..

After year 1 get with Robert Edwards and auction off for 13.1mm (net to me after fees)

Immediately pay off house, purchase 3 cards:
48 leaf satch
14-15 CJ Joe Jackson
A decent t206 plank

Retire.... Build 2 tennis courts in my backyard... Chill/play tennis for the next 40 years....
Have money market accounts with 5-7mm for my daughter and any future children that we might have.

I'd sell it, pay off my debts, set up a nice college fund for the kids, and buy some more interesting cards -- starting with that Buck Ewing N167 in the REA preview.

Cold
 

That's Cold Pete. I may get a E121 Ruth with some of the coin. You are welcome in the island. Everyone is welcome except for the rabid anti-dentites
I was thinking something Carribean.

sorry eric...i'll bring the e122 too!:D

Haha
 

Sounds like a deal Pete

If you found a Wagner...
 

Supposedly the one Bill Mastro bought in the 1970's as a teenager to complete his own set was somewhere around $1,500. Then the one he bought about 1985 and then later notoriously trimmed was a $25,000 card. They had value back then, but nothing compared to what they are today after the explosion of the internet hobby could pass the legend along to the masses. As crappy as what Mastro did is, it's only further fuel to the fire in terms of the legend and will keep all Wagners - and particularly that one - going up up up in value every single time it's sold.

It's ironic to me that the single most valuable and famous baseball card in the world is trimmed / altered, and still in a PSA 8 slab. One of my prized possessions is a '56 Mantle with a bum lower right corner because many years ago, I scratched a stain off of it and thus "altered" it in the eyes of many grading companies. Anyhow, I think of the Wagner now and try not to give myself such a hard time about it....


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I'd put it in an inch thick screw-down case, and invite my friends Whitey and Larry Mondello over to see it, and charge them a dollar apiece for the privilege. [emoji3]

...and if this were 1960 and I lived in the world of TV-Land make believe, I WOULD do that! But seriously. The crappiest example of that card in existence would probably allow me to payoff my mortgage or put a serious chunk of cash toward John's "Retire Early / Go To Hell" Fund...either of which would make the practical reality of keeping the card for any length of time very unlikely and a very poor decision at best. Heck, the people back in the 90's who won the Gretzky Wagner when Walmart gave it away had to sell it for sake of the simple fact that they couldn't afford to pay the tax on it...

In my case the consolation prize would likely have to be an agreement with my wife and financial advisor that goes something like this: "Okay, if I sell this card for $300 grand and payoff the house, you will agree that it's certainly reasonable that I take $5,000 of that and blow it on cards for myself...right? Please? Ah...honey?" [emoji5]


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If you found a Wagner...
 

First Wagner (the trimmed one) looks like the same that Keith Olbermann can be found showing ballplayers at Citi Field in a YouTube video. The second appears to be what's known as the "jumbo Wagner" that is PSA 5 MC. Which likely looks very similar to the way the Gretzky / McNall / Gidwitz / Walmart / now Ken Kendrick PSA 8 Wagner looked before good old Bill Mastro put it under the exacto knife.

Is the PSA 5 jumbo given the "MC" designation because it's oversized (even thought that was natural and it was not "cut" per se...)? If so seems a bit odd to me that it's the card labeled "MC" while the PSA 8 Wagner still resides in a plastic tomb with no qualifiers. That one by the way has been re-stabbed at least once - photos of the original PSA case exist from the early 1990's where the 0's in the serial number have slashes through them...

Again, if you are missing my point it's just interesting to me that the most famous and valuable baseball card in the world is to at least some extent a total fraud - and that the first card PSA ever graded doesn't even meet their own professed standards. I guess what is "good for the hobby" has to be taken into consideration, and at the end of the day it's all the more interesting as part of the Wagner card's lore...


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At this point IMO.... it's not going to matter what happens to the Gretzky/D-backs Wagner.... stories and time only add to its legend and value.

The card is unflappable.... sort of like Trump... doesn't matter what he says/does.. his poll numbers are gonna go up.. (not to bring politics into the thread) lol

That Honus is untouchable.

Sell .... in a heartbeat!

I would then buy a real nice 51B and 52T Mantle (in mid grade), pay off the mortgage, and put the rest away

I would hold on to the Wagner. The rest of the (relatively speaking) crap I have been collecting would get sold off. Then, I would buy a '52 Topps Mantle, and rebuild my collection from there.

Correct! It is one and the same :) .

Also correct!

And can't it be argued that there's a "10" within those oversized borders of the Jumbo Wagner?

Makes ya wonder, doesn't it :rolleyes: .

I'd have to sell it; I have a child about to start college. Even a low grade card would pay for her entire education in one shot.

As for the eternal garage sale question: of course I would purchase it quietly and not say a word to the seller. I know it is considered good form to say that I would pass on the sale if the situation actually arose; I just happen to be crass and craven and brazen enough to admit unapologetically that that is never gonna happen. I am not going to throw away a winning lottery ticket that someone else did not know enough to cash. Knowledge is power. Same as eBay; if you don't understand what you are selling, don't sell it. I bought a shoebox collection last weekend at a garage sale. Turned out that the seller or someone acting with the seller had gone through the box and pulled every star. All I ended up with were two Bert Blyleven cards and a few junk wax era HOFers that I didn't have before. Should the seller have told me that the box had been picked over? Nope. My duty to figure it out. I didn't have the time to go through a couple thousand cards on the spot and the price was low enough that I figured it was akin to a pack bust of junk wax. I ended up stuck with a box of worthless commons, so the seller got the better of the deal. If there'd been a Wagner in that box, I'd have been the fortunate one.

Agree^^^^^^^

For me, if I found one that was worth a decent amount and also found a person that has wanted one for a long time, then yes I would sell. I am this way in any way. In the past I have come across items and I knew people who were looking for the exact thing and I would offer to them, but I would not actively shop the item.