Baseball

The $3.13 Million T206 Honus Wagner Wasn’t Even the Most Impressive Auction

It may not sound all that unusual for a T206 Honus Wagner to fetch $3.13 million in an auction these days. That said, the “Charlie Sheen All-Star Cafe” Honus Wagner that fetched $3.136 million in the Mile High Card Co. auction is merely a PSA 1 grade. The backstory behind the card is fascinating. What is more fascinating is that this sale should not even be considered as the most important sale in the March 31 auction even if this was by far the highest price.

Images below provided by Mile High Card Company.

  • 1909-11 T206 Sweet Caporal 150/25 "Charlie Sheen All-Star Cafe" Honus Wagner PSA 1 PR-FR
    # Bids: 45
    Min Bid: $300,000.00
    Final Price: $3,136,500.00

The T206 Piedmont 350/25 back of Joe Doyle for “N.Y. Nat’l, Hands Up” is one of the toughest error cards that exists in the T206 set. This example was graded as PSA 2 and is listed as “exceedingly rare” in the description. The minimum bid price was already “exceedingly high” at $150,000.00 — but after 44 bids the final price came down at $1,055,798.79. Yes, a T206 error card is now worth over $1 million! If that is not the most impressive auction result then it would be solely because of the dollars involved.

Elsewhere, a 1909-11 T206 (Nearly) complete set that is the 520 necessary cards out of 524 cards (missing “the big four” with all cards graded by PSA and a PSA Set Registry with a 4.386 GPA fetched $400,772.13 after 35 bids.

1909-11 T206 Near Complete Set (520/524) Missing Only The Big Four for Completion, Every Card PSA Graded #12 On PSA Set Registry With 4.386 GPA
# Bids: 35
Min Bid: $50,000.00
Final Price: $400,772.13

The last serious impression in the T206 auction was a 1909-1911 T206 Sweet Caporal 350/30 Eddie Plank. This card is merely a PSA Authentic (A) and after a minimum bid of $7,500.00 there were 33 bids and a final price of $129,170.91.

1909-1911 T206 Sweet Caporal 350/30 Eddie Plank PSA AUTHENTIC
# Bids: 33
Min Bid: $7,500.00
Final Price: $129,170.91