T206 Honus Wagner baseball card, Pittsburg Pirates, Honus Wagner

by Thomas Pollart

Title

T206 Honus Wagner baseball card, Pittsburg Pirates, Honus Wagner

Artist

Thomas Pollart

Medium

Photograph - Mixed Media, Art, Photograph, Painting, Digital Art, Print

Description

Honus Wagner baseball card.

Johannes Peter "Honus" Wagner February 24, 1874 – December 6, 1955, sometimes referred to as "Hans" Wagner, was an American baseball shortstop who played 21 seasons in Major League Baseball from 1897 to 1917, almost entirely for the Pittsburgh Pirates. Wagner won his eighth (and final) batting title in 1911, a National League record that remains unbroken to this day, and matched only once, in 1997, by Tony Gwynn. He also led the league in slugging six times and stolen bases five times. Wagner was nicknamed "The Flying Dutchman" due to his superb speed and German heritage (English-speaking people commonly used the word "Dutch" to describe people from both the Netherlands and Germany back at that time). This nickname was a nod to the popular folk-tale made into a famous opera by another Wagner.

In 1936, the Baseball Hall of Fame inducted Wagner as one of the first five members. He received the second-highest vote total, behind Ty Cobb and tied with Babe Ruth.

Although Cobb is frequently cited as the greatest player of the dead-ball era, some contemporaries regarded Wagner as the better all-around player, and most baseball historians consider Wagner to be the greatest shortstop ever. Cobb himself called Wagner "maybe the greatest star ever to take the diamond." Honus Wagner is also the featured player of one of the rarest and most valuable baseball cards in existence.

The story of the most famous — and valuable — baseball card in the world continues to be told. The 1909-11 T206 Honus Wagner set a new world record price for a baseball card, selling for $3.12 million through Goldin Auctions. The price includes the Buyers Premium. This breaks the old record of $2.8 million, which was paid for a different copy of the card in 2007.

Known as the “Jumbo Wagner,” the card is graded a PSA 5, making it one of the top-condition copies of the card. And now that the infamous Gretzky Wagner is confirmed as being trimmed, many will argue this is the best version of the card. The record price certainly reflects that.


Widely regarded as the Holy Grail of baseball cards, the T206 Honus Wagner has set the record price for a baseball card several times over. And for good reason. Over the past century, the story and lore have become just as important as the card itself. No matter the condition, if a T206 Wagner is authentic, it commands huge prices. The best copies fetch millions.

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July 14th, 2018

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