Quote:
Originally Posted by benjulmag
It is a NrMt-Mt Wagner
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No, it is not. It is a twice cut down piece of a scrap T206 Wagner that was knowingly encapsulated as nm-mt by PSA to launch their brand. There is not and never has been a nm-mt issued T206 Wagner discovered in the wild, only this Frankencard. Not only did Bill Mastro admit that he personally cut the sides of the card, but he also went to prison for concealing that information when he sold it. As evidence, a confession that sends the confessor to the can is about as hardcore as it gets.
That said, I think you are raising a question that is interesting but that will never be answered. Remember the context. This stuff was
crap that only a handful of weirdos (I can say that since I am one of them since I was a kid) wanted. It wasn't an Old Master hanging in a royal collection. There is no catalog raissonne for cards. All we can judge is the physical evidence--the item itself. If we are lucky we occasionally get an item with impeccable provenance, like from an estate. Otherwise, it is conjecture and we will never know. For all we can say, Ray didn't want to say more because the source was an active one that he was plumbing for more cards. Remember how assiduously we all used to guard non-hobby sources in the bad old days? You didn't want your antique store source cleaned out by some other collector before you had a chance to do it.