Toughest 20th Century Pre-War Player to Collect?

[DeanH3]

Originally Posted by packs

I find Joe D hard to collect. I just don’t like the cards issued during his career other than the 1941 Play Ball but it’s been hard to find one with decent registration.

This is so true. So glad I was able to land a nice example.

[nat]

For hall of fame MLB players it's got to be someone from the 20s. My pick is Coveleski. Nobody who is in Goudey/Diamond Stars or T206 is that hard (obvious exceptions excepted) just because the supply is so high.

[paul]

From the Negro Leagues, Willie Foster and Pete HIll.

[bcbgcbrcb]

Right on, Paul. Don’t forget Biz Mackey too, only one card known and only two or three examples at that.

[oldjudge]

Not 20th century, but almost, and Burkett as a player

[sbfinley]

I think the answer has to be Joe Jackson. I can’t think of a period card of him where the cheapest entry isn’t the low to mid 5 figures unless you can find a beat to hell T200. He’s arguably the key card in almost every set he’s in. I can remember years ago Leon had a Jackson game card (either Polo Grounds or National Game) on his website for a couple hundred bucks and a couple times when I made a purchase I thought about adding it but never did. Been kicking myself. Wagner, Ruth, and Cobb are all in the “you’re going to have to pay up” category but at they are in enough sets that if you have some options. With Jackson it’s game card/Play Ball or take out a second mortgage.

[packs]

I wonder how long the Joe Jackson and Wagner run up is here to stay though. I agree that under current conditions, Wagner and Jackson are very difficult to collect.

But will it sustain itself? I find it hard to believe that anyone will continue to spend thousands of dollars on Tom Barker game cards. It has a nice image but is akin to a deck of playing cards and I think was appropriately priced in the past. Even the E91 Hans Wagner card is selling for thousands of dollars. But how much sense does it make to pay thousands for a card with a generic image? The Joe Jackson blanket also has a generic image and sells for a reasonable price still.

When I say generic image I mean the image on your Hans Wagner card is the exact same image on Joe Tinker's card, except the team names have been changed.

[Touch'EmAll]

Some of Wagner's cards come with the name "Hans". Personally, I would rather own a Wagner card with printed name on card and slip label as "Honus".

[packs]

I could live with Hans as long as the image on the card depicted the player.

[z28jd]

Originally Posted by Touch'EmAll

Some of Wagner's cards come with the name "Hans". Personally, I would rather own a Wagner card with printed name on card and slip label as "Honus".

If you search "Honus Wagner" on Newspapers dot com during his career, you will find 26,000 papers that call him Honus.

If you search "Hans Wagner" during that same time period, you will get 96,000 results.

So it should be more likely that you find a "Hans Wagner" item than a "Honus Wagner" item.

Post career until his death, Hans and Honus were basically used the same amount of times. Both coming in just over 80,000 examples. In reality, we should probably know him better as Hans Wagner, but from 1956 until now the usage is 140,000 Honus, 10,000 Hans, with many of them after the 1950s not being him.