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Another T206 Honus Wagner baseball card, considered the “Holy Grail” of the collector’s space, was recently discovered and sold at auction for $5.124 million.
The sale took place through Goldin Auctions and included the buyer’s premium. It is now the third most expensive T206 Wagner card ever, after a copy sold for $6.606 million in August 2021 and another in August 2022 for $7.25 million.
This recently discovered specimen was already 116 yards in the family of Douglas and Dennis Shields. Their grandfather, Morton Bernstein, the son of The National Silver Company founder Samuel E. Bernstein, collected trading cards and, most importantly, kept them since the early 20th century.
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A rare baseball card of Honus Wagner of the Pittsburgh Pirates, considered the greatest all-around player in baseball history, is on display during a preview of a sports memorabilia sale June 3, 2005 at Sotheby’s in New York. (STAN HONDA/AFP/Getty Images)
“We are honored that the Shields family has chosen us to represent this historic map that has been in their family for 116 years,” said Ken Goldin, CEO and founder of Goldin Auctions, in a statement: via ESPN.
This recently discovered example was rated a 1 by Professional Sports Authenticator (PSA), while the other two were rated 3 and 2 respectively by Sportscard Guaranty Corporation (SGC) upon their inception.
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Morton Bernstein eventually purchased FB Rogers Silver Company in 1955, and he made a point of displaying his saved cards in frames throughout his company. Eventually, The National Silver Company went bankrupt and the cards were placed in a warehouse.
When Douglas and Dennis emerged, the T206 Wagner card was featured in Netflix’s “King of Collectibles: The Goldin Touch,” where Goldin revealed it in a Season 3 episode in December.
The famous T206 Honus Wagner baseball card is displayed in New York City on June 6, 2000. The legendary baseball card will be auctioned on eBay starting July 5, 2000. (Chris Hondros/Newsmakers/Getty Images)
While this is a huge payout for another Wagner card, there remains another T206 on the market. With six days left at Heritage Auction, an SGC Authentic, considered a grade below a 1, is currently listed at $2.318 million.
So what exactly makes this card worth millions today? Scarcity in the collectibles industry is a major key, and since Wagner asked the American Tobacco Company to stop making his card in 1909, that factor is certainly at play here.
The 1909 baseball card of Pittsburgh Pirates shortstop Honus Wagner is shown for a photo in New York, USA, on Tuesday, February 19, 2013. (Scott Eells/Bloomberg/Getty Images)
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That was the same year Wagner won the World Series with the Pittsburgh Pirates, with whom he won eight batting titles. Wagner, nicknamed “The Flying Dutchman”, is one of the most recognized baseball players of all time and was among the original Hall of Fame inductees when the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum was founded in Cooperstown, New York.
