A T206 Honus Wagner will be coming to the auction block later this year–but it’s sharing the spotlight in this auction with a couple of close cousins.
Mile High Card Company will offer a PSA 2 (Good) version of the most recognizable baseball card in history in its Fall Auction. The card was sold privately for $1.2 million last fall, a deal that was just announced last week by SCP Auctions, which facilitated the transaction.
The last Wagner to come to auction was a restored example that netted $420,000 in a Memory Lane Auction last December.
The Wagner isn’t the only famous card from the T206 series consigned to Mile High’s catalog, though. They’ll also be offering a PSA 4.5 example of the Ty Cobb card with Cobb Tobacco back and an SGC 3-rated T206 Eddie Plank.
It may be the first time examples of all three cards have appeared individually in the same auction.
“Each of these cards on their own is deserving of headlines, but to offer them all in one auction is the finest moment in the history of our company,” said Mile High President Brian Drent. All three cards will be on display at the National Sports Collectors Convention in Chicago from July 31- August 4.
Drent says that while the card has wear “commensurate with the grade,” the surface wrinkles are light. “For this grade, it’s about as eye-appealing as you can get.”
The highest graded example on record at PSA and the grand prize of “The Lucky 7” find in 2016, the T206 Cobb/Cobb back is even more elusive than the Wagner with known examples numbering in the low twenties. The slightly glossy surface and “Ty Cobb – King of the Smoking Tobacco World” reverse are the two characteristics that distinguishes it from every other T206 Red Cobb and ranks among the hobby’s most valuable issues. The card was among several originally found inside a paper bag in an old house family members were cleaning out in the southeastern U.S. a few years ago. The cards were sold one-by-one for over $3 million combined.
“The Cobb is every bit as awe-inspiring as the Wagner and actually presents better than the grade with a clean image, outstanding centering and relatively sharp corners,” Drent stated. Like the Wagner, the Cobb/Cobb card is shrouded in mystery as to its origin and why it exists in such scant numbers. It’s believed it may have been produced in conjunction with the launch of Cobb’s own brand of tobacco, sold in a tin for a brief time during his career.
The Plank card is thought to have a population of only about 100 total specimens, higher than the Wagner and Cobb/Cobb but extremely sparse in comparison to just about any other issue. Graded SGC 3 VG, it’s one of the higher assessed specimens ever professionally graded.
Mile High will have all three cards on display at booth 612/614 as part of a showcase of items from its upcoming auction during the National in Chicago. Consignments for the auction are still being accepted.