Question re. Authenticating bonus Wagner spikes
 

Hi all...I post pseudo regularly on the card side here...and am currently on vacation in turkey. There is a guy on my trip who claims to have a pair of spikes honus Wagner used in his coaching days. He has had them for over 20 years. Can anyone offer any advice on verifying their authenticity and possible valuation?

Any help is appreciated.

Hey Peter
 

Hey Peter
Be careful over there in Turkey.
I am not going to be the one to be able to offer major help on this however, a couple questions come to mind. From my limited experience it seems the provenance, and the story of how things were acquired, can be quite important. I have a feeling without any hard provenance (written or physical) it's going to be impossible to be sure. Do they have his name on them by chance? IS there a story around how this person acquired them? Obviously the first thing that can be verified is that the cleats are period to when the seller says they are. We all know about the recent Ruth signature fiasco. It makes authentication (or not) easy when it's not even possible. Like if the cleats were only made after he passed away, unless we really want to get grim, he couldn't have worn them :).

If they were made by Nike or Adidas, my guess is that they wouldn't be real...

:D

Good Luck with your findings!

It can't be done. At best, you'll find that the spikes are the correct vintage. No one will ever be able to tell whether or not Honus wore 'em.

Just guessing but more than likely he has a pair of Wagner Sporting goods spikes

Thanks for suggestion leon and others. This guy used to be a hard core bb card collector in the pa area...and is older so I believe he may have something special here. I relayed advice and suggested he try to find old photo of Hans as a coach to try to possibly match the shoes. I told him about this site so maybe in the future well see some pics.

spikes
 

If you were a hardcore baseball collector and you had Wagner's real spikes, why would you want to get rid of them?
Also, if after you paid for the spikes, in turkey and if later found out they were fakes, what legally would you have to do to try and get your money back in Turkey? My guess would be nearly impossible. He lives there & knows the laws, and you don't.
Also, many of these things have great stories attached to them to entice you, and get to your emotions, to get the fantasy working in your mind. Or if the price seems reasonable enough to take a chance on them, like 500 bucks. Read the Barry Halper thread on here. He had great stories attached to some of his items that proved untrue later. Mabye he was duped into believing them by the people he bought them from?
There is no way to identify through photos of wagner wearing certain spikes, or any other dna testing (lol), ect that I know of. Even family members can get the story wrong.

I don't think the guy that has the spikes is from Turkey. Sounds like he is on the same trip to Turkey on vacation.

joe

Actually, DNA testing could be possible but it would depend on a lot of things. How long Wagner used the cleats, how much someone else used them, how much they were handled by others, and of course a reference dna sample from Wagner etc. That, of course, would be a long shot and fairly expensive on top of what it would cost to purchase the shoes. Not worth it in my book.

Start looking really close at pictures of Honus during his coaching days.

Here you go...

Attachment 45231