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For the second time in 2021, there is a new record for the most expensive collectible card ever sold.
A glittering example of the famous T206 Honus Wagner card auctioned off early Monday morning for a massive $ 5.5 million. Once you add the 20% buy premium charged by Robert Edwards Auction, you get a selling price of $ 6.6 million.
This breaks the previous baseball card record, set in early 2021, of over $ 1 million. This was held by another holy grail of baseball card collecting, a Mickey Mantle rookie card, which sold for a total of $ 5.2 million in January.
This is actually the third time in the past calendar year that the record for the most expensive baseball card has been broken. In August 2020, a Mike Trout rookie card sold for $ 3.93 million, taking the top spot of anything but a Wagner card, which held the record since 2016 with a sell price of 3 , $ 3 million.
This Wagner card is both the most expensive baseball card ever sold and the most expensive collectible card ever sold. A LeBron James rookie card sold in April 2021 had been linked to the Mantle card for the most expensive collectible card, but now they are both relegated to second place as the Wagner card takes over first place again. .
Why is the Honus Wagner card so rare?
Wagner, who was in the inaugural Baseball Hall of Fame class in 1936 (along with Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb, Christy Mathewson and Walter Johnson), played from 1897 to 1917. It was a time when baseball cards were produced. en masse and inserted into cigarette packs by companies like American Tobacco Company. This is the company that produced the T206 Wagner card.
While the vast majority of ATC charts were produced in large numbers – for example, over 4,200 ATC Cobb charts still exist today – only a tiny fraction of Wagner charts were produced. They are extremely difficult to find, especially in good condition, which is why they are so expensive.
Why have so few Wagner cards been produced? Even to this day, we don’t know the real reason, but there are a few theories. The first is that the printing plate broke shortly after the production of the card started. Another is that Wagner got into a copyright dispute with ATC over the amount he was being paid to appear on the map. Another popular theory, put forward by Wagner’s family, is that Wagner had his card taken from production because he did not want to promote tobacco to baseball-loving children.
While the latter theory is heroic and more than a little romantic, it’s also the least likely to be true. At that time, the image of Wagner appeared on cigar rings, with which he apparently had no problems. He was also quite a businessman, putting his name on things like chewing gum and gunpowder. He also became the first player with his own line of Louisville Slugger bats.
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