Question re. Authenticating bonus Wagner spikes

[ullmandds]

Hi all...I post pseudo regularly on the card side here...and am currently on vacation in turkey. There is a guy on my trip who claims to have a pair of spikes honus Wagner used in his coaching days. He has had them for over 20 years. Can anyone offer any advice on verifying their authenticity and possible valuation?

Any help is appreciated.

[Leon]

Hey Peter
Be careful over there in Turkey.
I am not going to be the one to be able to offer major help on this however, a couple questions come to mind. From my limited experience it seems the provenance, and the story of how things were acquired, can be quite important. I have a feeling without any hard provenance (written or physical) it's going to be impossible to be sure. Do they have his name on them by chance? IS there a story around how this person acquired them? Obviously the first thing that can be verified is that the cleats are period to when the seller says they are. We all know about the recent Ruth signature fiasco. It makes authentication (or not) easy when it's not even possible. Like if the cleats were only made after he passed away, unless we really want to get grim, he couldn't have worn them .

[roarfrom34]

If they were made by Nike or Adidas, my guess is that they wouldn't be real...



Good Luck with your findings!

[David Atkatz]

It can't be done. At best, you'll find that the spikes are the correct vintage. No one will ever be able to tell whether or not Honus wore 'em.

[murphusa]

Just guessing but more than likely he has a pair of Wagner Sporting goods spikes

[ullmandds]

Thanks for suggestion leon and others. This guy used to be a hard core bb card collector in the pa area...and is older so I believe he may have something special here. I relayed advice and suggested he try to find old photo of Hans as a coach to try to possibly match the shoes. I told him about this site so maybe in the future well see some pics.