It won’t win any beauty contests but it’s real, and that’s enough for collectors who want to own the hobby’s most famous baseball card. A T206 Honus Wagner graded “A” for authentic by SGC and featuring three completely trimmed borders and some creasing, sold for $198, 850 at auction late last week.
It generated 16 bids in a Goodwin and Company auction that closed early Friday morning after a couple of weeks of bidding on several dozen lots. The price included a 19% buyer’s premium paid by the new owner. The card, which had been owned by a collector who obtained it in the 1980s, was ungraded until it entered the market. It is the 44th T206 Wagner in the combined population reports of PSA and SGC.
A restored Wagner, graded Authentic by PSA, sold in the spring of 2011 via Robert Edward Auctions for $188,000.
Also generating strong interest in the Goodwin sale was a 1916 Babe Ruth Standard Biscuit rookie card which sold for $77,151, a Ruth single signed baseball graded PSA/DNA 8 ($37,354), a T206 Christy Mathewson black cap variation graded PSA 8 ($35,502) and a 1909-11 E-90-1 American Caramel Joe Jackson rookie card graded SGC 40 ($25,497).