Quote:
Originally Posted by Vintageclout
Ruth Rookie Overrated? Not even close. Let's use the T206 Wagner to squash that theory. Simply stated, there are currently 60-70 known examples (approx. 45+ graded) of the T206 Wagner. The Ruth Rookie including all backs currently has nearly 110 encapsulated copies (with MANY crossovers I might add), and an estimated 200 - 250 existing specimens (including raw examples). Therefore, it certainly appears the quantity of Ruth rookie cards is 4x higher than the T206 Wagner. Now pricing. A nice "VG/3" Wagner sold for nearly $1.3M two years ago (with beater "1's" now achieving $400K!), and a well-centered "VG/3" Ruth rookie fetches approximately $60K, give or take $5K. So this "so-called" overhyped card that represents baseball's unquestionable greatest player ever as well as one of the most iconic AMERICAN heroes currently achieves price tags that are a microscopic like 5% of the T206 Wagner, with the number of T206 Wagner's tallying to approx. 25% of the Ruth Rookie count!
I've never heard of anyone questioning the iconic stature of a T206 Wagner. Considering Babe Ruth ultimately towers above Wagner in overall prestige, I would safely say that the current pricing points for a Ruth Rookie card still have a long way to go before they achieve their due justice, justifying why the Ruth Rookie still stands as an UNDERRATED card in terms of value.
JoeT.
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Joe, when you are talking about cards with a population that close to zero, everything else being equal, there is an exponential decrease in value for larger population cards. You could counter with the Mino Wagners, but then you run into things like 'set popularity', mystique, story value (Gretzky, trimming, etc.), so all things would not be equal. Still, the T206 Wagner is fairly scarce as HOF'er cards go and is the rarest in the most popular pre-war set.