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A PRIMER FOR BASEBALL CARDS COLLECTING
With all of the high-profile (and high-priced) auctions in the news these
days, there may be a misconception that collecting is only for wealthy art
patrons.
Sometimes simple things —
items we all may have — can become prized collectibles.
Take baseball cards, for instance.
Baseball cards first appeared in the late 1880s, when tobacco companies
with names such as Gypsy Queen and Lone Jack issued them as a publicity
gambit. After the turn of the century, bubble gum makers started to do the
same. Almost immediately young boys (and more than a few grown men) began
trading their favorites back and forth.
Card collections can be based on anything, such as local players, cards
solely from the year you were born, or even major leaguers who attended
your college alma mater.
Cards are graded from "Mint" to "Poor," with many
grades in between. They're judged on their condition, rarity, age, the
player portrayed, and the number of individual cards printed. The
wonderful thing is you can still build what could become a world-class
collection of baseball cards, all for the price of a few packs of gum!
Baseball card values, like values for everything else in the world of
collecting, are often increased as much by mythmaking as by the truth.
And in the case of the now world-famous Honus Wagner card of 1909, the only
truth we know for sure is the increasing amount of money the card sells
for when it comes up at auction.
The 1902
Topps T-206 Honus Wagner set a record price
for the most expensive and collectible trading card when it sold for $1.26 million
US dollars in 2000 - not bad for a "simple" baseball card.
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Honus Wagner was a shortstop, star hitter and great fielder for the Pittsburgh
Pirates from 1897 to 1917. He was one of the first five players inducted
into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1936 in Cooperstown, New York.
It's said that he was an early pioneer in the anti-smoking movement,
insisting a card issued in 1909 with his likeness be removed from tobacco
packages for fear that children would start smoking. That would account
for the card's rarity.
"I don't want my picture in any cigarettes, but I also don't want you to lose the ten dollars, so I'm enclosing my check for that sum."
Honus Wagner wrote to a fan.
But then, Wagner was well-known for always having a wad of chewing tobacco
in his cheek. His picture even appeared on cigar boxes and cigar bands, so
some say the Wagner story is just that, a story.
But in the end, it doesn't really matter. Sotheby's sold a Wagner card to
hockey great Wayne Gretzky and a partner in 1991 for $451,000. The
Wal-Mart Company bought it from them (for an undisclosed amount) and it
raffled the card off on what would have been Wagner's 122nd birthday.
In 1996, the lucky winner put the card up at auction. This time it sold to a
Chicago businessman for $640,500.
American Tobacco Cards: A Price Guide and Checklist
by Robert Forbes, Terence Mitchell
Note: Auction Watch reports that a Honus Wagner
baseball card sold at Sotheby's New York in November 2004. "Among the premier highlights to be offered is the iconic T206 Honus Wagner card. In 1909 the American Tobacco Company issued its landmark T206 set of baseball cards which featured virtually all of the baseball players of the day. Honus Wagner, a member of the Pittsburgh Pirates organization and one of the first stars of modern day baseball, was the finest hitter of his day. The reason for the rarity of his card (approximately only 50 are known to exist) has been debated for decades. It has been suggested that due to his objection to having his name affiliated with the marketing of cigarettes, he was successful in halting the production of his card and consequently few were ever circulated. This rare survivor, the third finest known example, is estimated to sell for $375/500,000."
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The Official 2002 Price Guide to Baseball Cards
2001 Standard Catalog of Baseball Cards, 10th Ed
2001 Baseball Card Price Guide