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I loved to read growing up. Sports and fantasy stories were some of my favorites. Dan Gutman’s Baseball Card Adventure Series had both. The first book in the series, Honus and Me, introduces the reader to the main character, Joe “Stosh” Stoshank.
Joe is an easy character to root for. All he wants to do is be good at baseball, but he’s the worst player on his team. One day when Joe is cleaning out his neighbor’s attic to earn a little money, he comes across a 1909 T-206 Honus Wagner baseball card. What happens next is unbelievable. Joe starts to feel a strange tingling sensation that gets stronger and stronger. All of a sudden, Joe is transported back in time to 1909. Who’s there to greet him? None other than Honus Wagner himself.
The most recent T-206 Honus Wagner card to sell at auction sold for over $3 million dollars in 2020. Only 50 to 200 Wagner cards were ever produced, and only 57 are still accounted for today. In 1909, baseball cards were acquired from cigarette packs, similar to the way toys are given as a part of Happy Meals and wizard cards found through the purchase of Chocolate Frogs.
Immediately after the initial production of the T-206 Wagner baseball card, Wagner himself ordered that the tobacco company, Sweet Caporal Cigarettes, stop including his card in the packs. He didn’t want to encourage smoking. As a result, less than a hundred Honus Wagner cards were ever produced, resulting in his card having a mystical value for sports card collectors today.
It isn’t just the Wagner card that holds tremendous worth. This January, the previously held record for the most expensive sports card ever sold was shattered in the $5.2 million dollar sale of a 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle Rookie Card. The card was purchased by entrepreneur Rob Gough who believes he got “a steal” of a bargain.
If history is any indicator of the future, Gough might be right. 20 years ago, the seller of the most recently sold T-206 Wagner card stated that he had bought the card for $130,000 in the year 2000. That’s an over $3 million dollar profit. To prove this point further, Vegas Dave, an internet celebrity, swears by the buying and selling of baseball cards. Just two years ago in 2018 Dave bought a Mike Trout rookie card for $400,000. Two years later in 2020, Dave flipped it for a whopping $4 million dollars.
It isn’t just baseball cards that are running the market. In March 2021, a Tom Brady rookie card sold for $1.32 Million dollars. A few weeks later, on Friday April 2nd, a Tom Brady card from the same production series sold for $2.25 million. Both cards were a part of the “2000 Playoff Contenders Championship Rookie Ticket Card.” Only one hundred of the cards were ever produced with all one hundred coming with Brady’s signature on it.
A large determinant in the value of rare cards like the Wagners, Trouts, and Mantles are their condition. All cards that go to auction are graded on a 1-10 scale. When a card is being “graded,” it’s centering, corners, edges, and surfaces are all considered in determining its final value. A card that receives a rating of 9 or 10 is considered to be in “Mint” condition and will therefore fetch the most money.
Only time will tell if highly priced trading cards are an anomaly or an indication of a whole future market of selling cards. These recent sales of trading cards may be pointing to a potential industry similar to that of the respected fine art business where paintings that sell for tens of millions of dollars at auction are considered to be sound investments.
What will the next most valuable cards be? Next time you look back at your old collection, put a pack of trading cards into your cart at the store, or come across a card lot at a yard sale, keep in mind what you might find.
