How many Wags?

hcv123 · #1 05-06-2022, 02:34 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bigdaddy

It seems like a Wagner is popping up once or twice a year in auctions these days. And crowd wisdom seems to peg the total number of Wagners surviving to be around 50, give or take a few that haven't see light in a while. T206Resource.com shows 46 unique examples.

What percentage of the Wagners that left the factory do you think survive to this day? 10%? - meaning there were ~500 issued. 50%? - meaning there were ~100 issued? Or maybe 1%, meaning that there were 5000 released in cigarette packs.

The true answer may be lost to time, but it is something we can take an educated guess at. So what's your estimate? Of all the Wagners that we can hold in our hands today, what percentage does that represent of all the ones that were released, and therefore existed at some point in the past?

Once or twice a year? I think they have been showing up almost 1 a month for the past 5-6 months.
Last time I checked combined PSA and SGC pop report was in the low 60's.
Not sure what you are really looking for with your question - as previously stated it is very known that not many Wagners (relative to other players, Doyle error and Plank excepted) made it into the hands of the tobacco buying public. The Irony to me is there are quite a few cards with significantly lower populations/examples available - just likely none that will ever reach the storied level and demand that the T206 has.

JollyElm · #2 05-06-2022, 03:20 PM

I gotta believe there were a lot more released than we can imagine. (Forgive the ignorance...) Did Wagner, in fact, tell the tobacco monger(s) to shove it and remove his cards from their products? Is it documented? (I thought the anti-tobacco 'story' was more or less anecdotal.) If that's a "yes," then logically there would've been plenty out in the marketplace before the controversy unfolded, and the cards ceased being printed. Those Honus horses would've left the barn in the same quantities as the other players (assuming it wasn't a short-print scenario, of course).

bmattioli · #3 05-06-2022, 05:25 PM

I have always gone by the 50 or less theory..

G1911 · #4 05-06-2022, 07:59 PM

We have production numbers (which many not even be complete due to the Brett Litho. fire) for some of the other T card sets. Of course, we do not have a total count of surviving cards to calculate the %, but it seems the % is pretty clearly very, very low for them. The survival rate of all T cards are probably pretty similar.

cannonballsun · #5 05-07-2022, 08:10 AM

It's hard to vote in the poll, due to we just have so little information to work with. Here would be my guesses.
The T206 set was issued over 100 years ago. For most of those 100+ years, probably 99% of the population viewed T206 cards as worthless pieces of paper. I would guess 99% of the T206 cards have been either thrown away or destroyed, or just haven't been found yet.
It seems 45 to 70 Wagner's (various opinions) still exist. I would think that is more than 1% of the Wagner's created. Maybe 10%. The Wagner was known as rare and somewhat valuable, but by what percentage of the population - 5% ?
So that's my guesses. Around 500 Wagner's were made, 10% are left.
One thing I am certain of. More Wagners will be found and pop up over time. That is one of the great things about our hobby. Stuff is always being found that was lost, misplaced, or just not known to be valuable.

cannonballsun · #6 05-07-2022, 08:30 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by G1911

We have production numbers (which many not even be complete due to the Brett Litho. fire) for some of the other T card sets. Of course, we do not have a total count of surviving cards to calculate the %, but it seems the % is pretty clearly very, very low for them. The survival rate of all T cards are probably pretty similar.

I was not familiar with the production numbers, so I googled it. An article in the Sports Collector's Digest said that production could be as high as 370 million (based on cigarette pack sales), and as many as 1.6 million T206 cards still exist. Those are huge numbers, but definitely a very low survival rate.

insidethewrapper · #7 05-07-2022, 08:48 AM

I don't believe anyone ever verified that a Wagner card was actually inserted into a pack. Did any of the old-timers ever report someone getting one in a pack of cigarettes ?

Pat R · #8 05-07-2022, 09:25 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by insidethewrapper

I don't believe anyone ever verified that a Wagner card was actually inserted into a pack. Did any of the old-timers ever report someone getting one in a pack of cigarettes ?

I think there's enough evidence to assume he was inserted in Sweet Caporal packs, trying to even guess how many is hard to do because there's nothing to compare it with.
I believe there were a few series of SC150/25 and SC150/30 printings and Wagner was included in only one of those printings.

View Poll Results: What percentage of all (authentic) T206 Wagners produced still exist?
<1% (over 5000 released)	12	16.22%
Between 1% and 10% (500-5000 released)	22	29.73%
Between 10% and 25% (200-500 released)	20	27.03%
Over 25% (less than 200 released)	20	27.03%
Voters: 74. You may not vote on this poll

Similar Threads
Thread	Thread Starter	Forum	Replies	Last Post
Joe's Wags	Bigdaddy	Net54baseball Vintage (WWII & Older) Baseball Cards & New Member Introductions	1	02-14-2021 02:16 PM
WTB: E90-2 Wags	wolterse	Pre-WWII cards (E, D, M, etc..) B/S/T	0	09-10-2016 05:30 PM
Move over Wags.....	Marckus99	Net54baseball Vintage (WWII & Older) Baseball Cards & New Member Introductions	5	02-13-2013 09:07 AM
You have to be kidding e95 wags...	daves_resale_shop	Net54baseball Vintage (WWII & Older) Baseball Cards & New Member Introductions	5	05-02-2012 03:22 PM
W-Unc Wags, Anyone know where I may find him?	Ladder7	Net54baseball Vintage (WWII & Older) Baseball Cards & New Member Introductions	5	05-09-2011 07:05 AM