The Most Expensive Baseball Card

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The craze for collecting one’s favorite items has come down from the ages. Some collect stamps, while others, famous paintings while some create an entire library of their favorite books or music records and albums, and such other collectibles. Similarly, baseball cards also created a great market when the T206 series of baseball cards were produced by the American Tobacco Company around 1909.

Fact 1 The Costliest Basball Card

The most expensive baseball card of all time is the T206 Honus Wagner card. The exclusiveness of this card is that it depicts the famous player Honus Wagner. He was a player of the team Pittsburg Pirates. It was designed by the ATC and was one of the cards of the T206 series.

Fact 2 Description Of The Card

The original card, produced by ATC was 3.65 cm wide and 6.67 cm high. Some of the cards were not printed accurately and had irregular shapes and sizes. So it was assumed that the cards in the series must have been trimmed or altered to give the card an improved look. The company produced something around 50 to 200 cards that had been distributed to the public and thereafter, production was stopped due to some dispute between Wagner and the Company for he did not want kids to buy tobacco to collect the cards.

Fact 3 Sale Of The Most Expensive Card

In 1933, this T206 Honus Wagner Card became a part of the card list and was priced at $50. It was the costliest card in the world of that time. The first person to pur chase this baseball card was Bill Maestro, who was a baseball memorabilia collector. He later sold it to Jim Copeland. Gradually the importance and the worth of this card began to rise and in 1991, it was sold to the famous Ice Hockey player Wayne Gretzky and Bruce McNall for $451,000. 4 years later Gretzky sold it to Wal-Mart for $500,000. It was to be awarded in a promotional contest to the best contestant.

Fact 4 News About The T206 Honus Wagner Baseball Card

According to sources, nearly 60 such cards were printed. Among them, 57 have been found. It is noticeable that among all other cards of this T206 series, very few cards were printed that depicted Honus Wagner. The rarity of the card depends on the authenticity of the prints. The rarest version of all has the Piedmont backing. The importance of this special card beats all other cards of the series and even the damaged copies sell for six figures if they are original.

Fact 5 What Makes This Card So Expensive

Hobbyists are ready to pay a handsome amount for the item that they desire if it is genuine and authentic. They do not care for the condition of the card. This card is a coveted possession of owners who value the history, rarity and the importance of this iconic player Honus Wagner. The price of the baseball card soared to $640,000 that was bought by Michael Gidwitz, a Chicago collector.

Every time, the card was put on auction, the preciousness of T206 Honus Wagner baseball card was all the more proved to the world. In 2007, the record-setting amount was $1.27 million. Brian Siegel who had bought it sold it for $2.35 million to an anonymous collector who sold it again for $2.8 million. In 2010, this famous card gained national importance again when it was found with the School Sisters of Notre Dam Convent that was based in Baltimore. It surpassed the previous auction estimates and fetched a price of $262,000.

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