I think most of us that think of the Wagner as overrated are thinking overrated as a rarity. It's not really rare. Its rarity is constantly overstated, usually it's claimed to be the "rarest card".
It's certainly not overrated as the pop culture icon that represents the entire hobby.
The 52 Mantle is in the same category, being a double print hasn't hurt it at all. As a rarity it doesn't even beat other 52 high numbers, and it's not his rookie card as is often reported. (The whole "rookie card" defenition being weakened by becketts defenition, another whole thread in itself)
But each is a card of a great player from the set of the era. And each is fairly tough and has a great story to make it more popular still. All those sort of things add up to make for an expensive item in any hobby. Upside down airplane stamp, 1913 liberty nickel, you get the idea (The 1913 nickel is a poor example, actually being quite rare, but without the story to make it valid it would be just another backdoored pattern)
Someone else made the point that without the Wagner the entire hobby would be very different. I think that's a very important point, I'm a bit involved with a couple other hobbies that are a bit less mainstream. In one, there's no catalog, no real idea of what's out there, and very little money involved. In another, the hobby was literaly an underground hobby for a long time. Some oldtimers still worry about the FBI busting them. And in that one, a common item may have 75-100 copies available. Yeah, the common stuff is as scarce numerically as the Wagner. And many of those things sell for $50, maybe up to 200. There's some truly rare stuff, one to three copies known, and the biggest price is maybe 15K with most of it under 5000.
Between supply and demand, demand wins big every time.
Steve B
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