Interesting news surfaced yesterday in the sports card industry, where a PSA 1, T206 Honus Wagner card has received a $3.172 million bid at Goldin Auction. This price has already set a record for the highest sale of a PSA 1 card, and currently ranks as the fourth highest price ever paid for a T206 Wagner.
Interestingly, this is very early on in the auction, as the last day doesn’t end for another 24 days. The T206 is often referred to as the grail of sports cards, and often thought of as one of the most desired and expensive baseball cards in existence.
There have been a few other record setting T206 sales that are worth noting. In 2022, a PSA 1.5 sold via Goldin for $3.72 million. Another PSA 1 sold via Mile High Auction for $3.136 million. An SGC 3 sold back in 2021, by REA, for $6.6 million. The record for the highest recorded sale of a T206 is from 2022, where it was sold by Goldin through a private sale, for $7.5 million.
This PSA 1 card that is currently at auction inevitably will open collectors’ eyes to lower graded cards, and gives value to cards that may not have seen higher sales prices. This card is the definition of the physical card selling at auction, rather than the grade or the hype surrounding it.
This specific T206 is known as the “Connecticut Wagner” because it surfaced in 1985 at a card show in Connecticut. Owner of Goldin Auction, Ken Goldin, said, “The card itself is graded, which is very important. There has not been a graded example of a T206 card that has been sold since 2022…anything that was sold since then was unable to receive a numerical grade and was marked either restored, authentic, or altered.”
Something important to note is that when this card was graded, a 1.5 was not an option, resulting in its 1 (poor-fair) grade. However, anything that is considered fair today would be graded a 1.5…giving this card a premium.
Honus Wagner’s T206 card is the holy grail of sports cards and the greatest investment that a collector in the hobby could make. To date, there have been no-known sales of a T206 that have resulted in a loss for the seller…talk about an investment. So the multi-million dollar question is, where do you see this auction's end price being?