T206 Honus Wagner-Piedmont

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Posted By: Bruce Babcock

I wonder how many bidders have been approved by the auction house thus far?

Did you read this blurb from the Daily News? Has anybody heard of this guy Mike Mango?

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Bob Connelly, a tall man with gray hair and the understated confidence of a country gentleman, pulled a Lucite block out of the pocket of his suit jacket last week and plopped it on a glass table in an office 20 floors above Park Ave. South. He sat with sports memorabilia broker Mike Mangasarian, who is better known as Mike Mango and has long dark hair and a big bushy mustache that make him look a little like Salvador Dali.

A T206 Honus Wagner card - the most sought-after baseball card in the world - was embedded in the Lucite. Approximately 50 T206 Wagners are believed to exist, and even cards in shabby condition sell for more than $100,000. A collector that Mangasarian wouldn't identify hired him to check out the card and report back his opinion. As a crew from HBO's "Real Sports" looked on with cameras rolling, Mangasarian picked up the block and studied it carefully. "I figure it's a strong four," Connelly said, referring to the mark the grade on a scale from one to 10 he thinks it would receive from a card-grading service. "What's your opinion?" "I agree," Mangasarian replied. "It's in that ballpark area." And just like that, the most controversial baseball card in recent history gained instant credibility. Connelly, an auctioneer and appraiser from Binghamton, thinks the card could be worth up to $850,000 and plans to sell it at an Aug. 15 auction. The card is owned by John Cobb and Ray Edwards, two Cincinnati men who have waged a long and frustrating battle with the memorabilia establishment to prove the card is real. Cobb bought the card in the 1980s for $1,800.

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You'll notice Mango never says the card is real. He just agrees with Connelly and says it's a "4." I guess if you have an office on the 20th floor in NYC you have credibility.

What do I know, I'm writing this from my basement.