Just 17 months after it last sold at auction, a T206 Honus Wagner card graded PSA 1.5 sold for $3.72 million at Goldin Auctions Sunday night, setting a new record for the grade.
The same card sold for $2.28 million at Heritage Auctions in May of last year.
The auction marked the 14th private or public sale of a Wagner since the start of 2020. All but one have sold for at least $1.1 million, with the lone example being the $475,000 of a card that was essentially torn in half.
In May of 2021, a PSA 2 sold for $3.66 million through Goldin. The record price for a Wagner was set three months later at $6.6 million for an SGC 3 copy that sold at Robert Edward Auctions.
One of what’s believed to be about 60 surviving examples of sports collecting’s card, it has a large vertical crease running through the front, corner wear and four brown spots on the pack, likely from having been placed in a scrapbook at some point many years ago.
The sale continues a long trend of each successive sale of a Wagner card resulting in a higher price.
The auction had been scheduled to close Saturday night, but was extended by a day because some bidders were unable to access the auction due to technical issues.
A 1938 Brooklyn Dodgers uniform worn by Babe Ruth and a mid-1950s Jackie Robinson model glove failed to meet an undisclosed reserve and did not sell.
Other items that sold included a PSA 10 1986-87 Fleer Michael Jordan card ($180,000), a 1933 Goudey Babe Ruth SGC 7 ($122,400), a 1966 Topps USA Test #35 Bobby Orr Rookie Card PSA NM-MT+ 8.5 ($122,400) and a 1969 Topps Mickey Mantle white letters variation ($74,400–a record for the grade).
Complete results can be found here.