Honus Wagner

Over a century ago,  Honus Wagner, a shortstop with the Pittsburgh Pirates, had a stellar 17-year career that made him one of the first inductees in the Baseball Hall of Fame.  But in recent years Mr. Wagner seems to have become even more famous because of a  little piece of cardboard bearing his image.

The most valuable baseball card in the world is a mint-condition T206 Honus Wagner card, issued in 1909 by the American Tobacco Company.  In 2008 the card changed hands for $2.8 million. 

This week the T206 Honus Wagner card is again in the news -- albeit a different specimen -- in rather poor condition.  It is legally owned by the Sisters of Notre Dame, in Baltimore,  who inherited it from a man whose "sister was a Sister"  so to speak.   On November 4 the Sisters will auction off the card, hoping to make about $150,000 for a number of needy causes. 

Strange as this news item might be,  Mr. Wagner himself is always part of any story about this card, because it is he who made the card especially rare. In the first few months of the card's existence, Wagner successfully demanded that its production be stopped.

Wagner was ahead of his time.  Back in 1909 there was no legal age limit for cigarette sales. Wagner didn't like the idea of children smoking, and didn't want his image used to promote it. 
 
Many have questioned this, saying that  Wagner's real beef was about money.  The American Tobacco Company never consulted or paid any of the players before using their images.  Possibly  Wagner gave them an ultimatum -- Pay Me or Pull the Card.

If the story is true, then it could still be said that Wagner was ahead of his time, and would make an excellent Player Rep in this era of pro baseball greed.

Another 75 years would pass before card collecting became a mainstream idea.  The amount of collectors skyrocketed in the 1980s, as did the card values.  1984 saw the first publication of the Beckett's Guide to baseball cards, which assigned prices to tens of thousands of vintage cards.

Even new cards were rated,  some of them purported to be collectors items even as they rolled off the presses.  Back in 1999,  I recall once observing a young kid opening packs of cards, with his Beckett Guide right beside him to evaluate each new card.  The most choice cards went into plastic protective sleeves.

So different from the careless abandon of my childhood 60s.  Back then I didn't care what shape the cards were in.  A great many of them were obtained through flipping, scaling (tossing  them like Frisbees) and other such games -- the cards were actually PLAYED WITH.  Furthermore,  the previous year's cards were as worthless as the previous year's calendar, and met the same fate.

But unbenownst to me at the time, there were collectors, people who held on to that 1963 Pete Rose rookie card I threw away,  like those unusual folks back in 1909 who held on to the T206  Honus Wagner card.

For all the excesses of baseball,  the evils of tobacco,  and the callous profiteering in the sports memorabilia biz,  it's nice to know something really good can happen occasionally -- here's hoping the good Sisters make a killing on November 4.