T206 Honus Wagner, Once Owned by Ex-Player Garagiola, Sells for Millions Again
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Honus Wagner, as he often has before, is making a little more card sales history. The T206 Wagner card, long considered the Holy Grail of the sports card collecting world, sold in authentic graded condition for $3.5 million-- the second seven-figure Wagner sale in the last week.
T206 Wagner Sells High Again
Heritage Auctions sold the Wagner card for $3.599 million on Saturday, just a week after a PSA 1 graded Wagner fetched $5.1 million. The history behind the PSA Authentic Wagner is a fascinating part of the back story. Former MLB player and broadcaster Joe Garagiola once owned this card, and traded one of his game-used 1950s uniforms as part of the deal to obtain the Wagner.
Garagiola passed away in 2016 and his family sold the card in 2021 for $2.52 million. By selling for $3.599 million, this Wagner sale climbs to sixth on the all-time history of Wagner card sales. The top reported Wagner sale remains the $7.25 million 2022 private sale of a Wagner graded SGC 2. The recently sold Wagner was graded Authentic largely on the basis of some paper loss on the back of the card. The front, while a bit weathered, looks pretty solid for a piece of nearly 120-year old cardboard.
Wagner History
The story of the Wagner card is often recounted and somewhat near impossible to verify. Wagner, an elite Pittsburgh Pirates shortstop who was perhaps the best player ever at his position, was an important inclusion in the T206 set. But the American Tobacco Company failed to obtain Wagner's permission to include his image in the set.
This is where the story divides. It was often claimed that Wagner hated smoking and objected to his inclusion in the set on moral grounds. This seems doubtful as Wagner's continued chewing tobacco habit seems to indicate no issues with that form of tobacco use.
Another story is that Wagner simply resented not being compensated-- which is perhaps more in keeping with baseball's eternally acrimonious labor situation. In either case, very few Wagner cards (perhaps 100 or so) were ever made, and fewer still are still around.
As early as 1933, the Wagner was known to fetch a premium, as Jefferson Burdick valued it at $50 in his The American Card Catalog. A controversial version of the card (as it may have been trimmed or altered) sold for $451,000 to Wayne Gretzky and sports mogul Bruce McNall in 1991. The Wagner eclipsed a seven-figure mark in 2000 and has several times been the most expensive sports card ever.
Joe is a journalist and writer who covers college and professional sports. He has written or co-written over a dozen sports books, including several regional best sellers. His last book, A Fine Team Man, is about Jackie Robinson and the lives he changed. Joe has been a guest on MLB Network, the Paul Finebaum show and numerous other television and radio shows. He has been inside MLB dugouts, covered bowl games and conference tournaments with Saturday Down South and still loves telling the stories of sports past and present.