T-206 Honus Wagner

[Bosox Blair]

Originally Posted by vintagecpa

If the T206 Wagner card wasn't so famous, then all of the Wagner cards would trade at lower levels. He trades at a premium because whenever one of his cards sell, it hits the media. Many people pay a premium simply to own one. I would speculate that his value would be less than the Cobb, and somewhere around the next lower tier of Hof'ers.

Wow - I can't believe someone said this and that several other people seem to agree with it.

Does anyone remember the inaugural vote for the Baseball Hall of Fame? Yeah, the one where this Wagner character got the second most votes of any player in the entire history of baseball (and the same number of votes as Babe Ruth, who had recently finished rewriting the baseball record books).

Any suggestion that Wagner was a second-tier Hall of Famer (or for that matter anything but one of the very greatest players of all time) is preposterous to me.

Now, let's leave the baseball world and go to the card-collecting world. Forget about the T-206 Wagner for a second...it is WAY tougher to get a Wagner card than a Cobb card. Wagner appears primarily in candy sets with much lower populations than the tobacco sets where Cobb is a huge presence. My guess (I have never done the math on this, but it would be worth doing) is that the total number of specimens of Wagner cards out there in the world would be about 1/3 or less (probably less) than the number of Cobb cards out there.

I don't think Wagner cards are a bit overpriced. And it has nothing at all to do with T-206. It has everything to do with Wagner being one of the very greatest ballplayers in history, a tough card subject for such a great and beloved player...and a fine human being to boot.

Cheers,
Blair