New Wagner Find

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Posted By: Corey R. Shanus

Sadly I agree with a previous thread that the sale of this "Wagner Card" is hardly a unique occurrence. In fact, I had an experience with one of the supposedly most reputed auction houses a number of years ago when they were selling a misidentified photograph. Despite me sending them a certified letter explaining in tremendous detail what I felt was conclusive evidence the item was misidentified, and despite a who's who of baseball memoribilia experts all calling to say the item was misidentified, the auction house went ahead and sold the item. In doing so, they refused even to voluntarily disclose to prospective bidders the controversy surrounding the item or the evidence the item was misidentified. All they agreed to do was to disclose this evidence IF ASKED. My response that if a bidder knew enough to ask for the contravening evidence, he probably already knew enough of the controversy surrounding the item to not need the evidence in the first place, fell on deaf ears. I was so outraged by the experience that I (with another Board member) wrote an article about what happened in the VCBC.

While of course I wouldn't want to see anybody buy this "Wagner Card" believing it is real, there is a certain side of me that would like to see that occur so as to give the buyer grounds for suing the pants off the auction house. I just have to believe that auction houses have an affirmative obligation to not deliberately put their heads in the sand and to present some reasonable disclosure of overwhelming evidence and expert assessment that an item is not as described.