Wagner with Outstanding Provenance - not Providence - up for Auction:

[clydepepper]

http://www.wsbtv.com/sports/honus-wa...ions/521733642


Belated spelling correction completed.

[slipk1068]

Is that the same as provenance?

[BengoughingForAwhile]

Originally Posted by slipk1068

Is that the same as provenance?

Providence is a college in Rhode Island. Marvin Barnes, Rick Pitino, Billy Donovan, et al.

[pokerplyr80]

Originally Posted by BengoughingForAwhile

Providence is a college in Rhode Island. Marvin Barnes, Rick Pitino, Billy Donovan, etc.

I believe it's also the capital city of Rhode Island.

Does anyone else believe being able to trace the card back to its original owner turns a 400k card into one worth 1m?

[Peter_Spaeth]

Divine.

[brianp-beme]

Since when did the Provenance of Providence become so Provocative?

Brian

[clydepepper]

Originally Posted by pokerplyr80

I believe it's also the capital city of Rhode Island.

Does anyone else believe being able to trace the card back to its original owner turns a 400k card into one worth 1m?

Thanks for the correction.

[Bestdj777]

Originally Posted by pokerplyr80

I believe it's also the capital city of Rhode Island.

Does anyone else believe being able to trace the card back to its original owner turns a 400k card into one worth 1m?

Rhode Island aside, I can't imagine it would make much difference. I could see a really interesting store (i.e., the Nun's Wagner the Net54 member was selling a year or so ago) making an example slightly more desirable and leading to slightly increased bidding, but I just don't see connecting a card through past sales having the same impact.

[Tom Hufford]

Wow, I never knew what happened to this Wagner card, or who had purchased it, after Bill Haber died.

I could have been the third owner of this card - if I could have come up with $500! In the late 1960s-early 1970s, I had started collecting the T206 set, and was purchasing them for 35 cents each from Wirt Gammon, of Chattanooga, TN. I would send him $8.75 - or $17.50 if I really saved up - and Wirt would send me 25 (or 50) different cards. I would look through them, keep what I needed, and return the duplicates to him for credit. Over a few years, I probably got about 500 different cards - the vast majority of my set - from Wirt

In one of the shipments (he mailed them in the old metal Band-Aid boxes), Wirt sent a note saying since it looked like I was getting pretty close to completing the set, if I would be interested in purchasing his Honus Wagner card, he would sell it to me for $500. I was in college, and there was no way I could come up with that kind of money, so I passed.

So, Wirt was also selling cards to Bill Haber, of Brooklyn, NY, and Bill did come up with the $500, and purchased the card. I first met Bill in person in August 1971, when we both went to Cooperstown and were two of the founding members of SABR. Bill brought a notebook with him, in which he had mounted his T206 set, so I did get to see the card then - and again about five years later when I visited Bill at his home.

After Bill died in 1995, his collection was sold, and I never knew what had happened to that Wagner - until now! (and no, I still don't have one).

[clydepepper]

Originally Posted by BengoughingForAwhile

Providence is a college in Rhode Island. Marvin Barnes, Rick Pitino, Billy Donovan, etc.

Thanks for the correction.

[clydepepper]

Originally Posted by slipk1068

Is that the same as provenance?

Thanks for the correction.