A 1909 Honus Wagner baseball card sold for $1.62 million at a memorabilia auction in Chicago.
The record price for a baseball card is $2.8 million, which was paid in 2007 for a near-mint condition Wagner card.
Bidders at the Friday night auction also spent $42,000 on Ken Griffey, Jr.’s 600th home run ball and $240,000 for a 1938 Lou Gehrig Yankees road jersey.
TRAFFIC New York less than 2 months away.
The value of a “rare” product is in the eyes of the person which wants it (buyer) – what price is the person prepared to pay for it (how much $$$$)
If I remember correctly, there are only something like 60 of these – Honus made the company pull all his cards from circulation when he found out they were being distributed in cigarette packs. Add that to being on of the first inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame, and 100 years old, and you have yourself an expensive card.
The one that set the record was once owned by Gretzky (dubbed the Gretzky Wagner) who paid something like half a million for it, and is the nicest version known to exist. So nice in fact, that some naysayers believe that the card was trimmed to increase the value, which of course, just isnt true.
I have a 1909 T206 card from the same pack, but it just isnt worth the same 🙂 Thanks for this post – I havent been following card sales for while now and it’s always nice to see strong sales for these small pieces of history.