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A 1909 Sweet Caporal T206 Honus Wagner baseball card sold for more than $5 million.
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The card, which had stayed in the same family for more than a century, was sold via Goldin Auctions for $5.124 million, the third most expensive T206 Wagner behind a copy bought for $6.06 million in August of 2021 and a copy sold privately for $7.25 million in August of 2022, per ESPN.
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“We are honoured that the Shields family chose us to represent this historic card that has been in their family for 116 years,” said Ken Goldin, CEO and founder of Goldin, in a statement.
Long History
The card belonged to Douglas and Dennis Shields, whose grandfather, Morton Bernstein, the son of the founder of The National Silver Company, collected and preserved trading cards in the early 1900s. When Bernstein purchased F.B. Rogers Silver Company in 1955, he framed the cards and decorated the business with them. When National Silver folded, the cards were bequeathed to Dennis and Douglas.
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Goldin announced the card in December, documented on the Netflix show “King of Collectibles: The Goldin Touch.”
“Tonight, the Shields shared with me that they are thrilled with the sale — and we hope the new owner treasures it as much as they did,” Goldin continued. “The T206 Honus Wagner remains the Mona Lisa of sports cards.”
The ‘Holy Grail’ of sports cards
The Honus Wagner T206 is considered a treasured find by collectors and experts, given the card’s history and especially scarcity. The exact figure is debated, but it’s believed there are between 50 and 60 in existence.
According to the National Baseball Hall of Fame, the Wagner card has been described as “The Holy Grail of card collecting.” It is the subject of three books, one for adults and two for children. It was even the inspiration for a movie about Wagner, 2004’s “The Winning Season,” released in 2004.
In 1909, the American Tobacco Company decided that a set of baseball cards inserted into packs of cigarettes would give it a marketing edge over competitors. As the cards were released, Wagner, star shortstop of the Pittsburgh Pirates and a man who would one day be one of the first five players elected to the Hall of Fame, objected to his inclusion and his card was pulled from the set. Speculation varies as to why he wanted his card pulled. No one knows how many Wagners made it into circulation, and in fact, no one knows how many exist today.
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