The years of 2015 and 2016 are bringing record sales prices for sports collectibles, particularly for the area of high-end baseball cards. If there is one sports card that captures the entire sports collectibles venue, it is the T206 Honus Wagner.

This is one of the few faces of the sports collectibles business, and it is a widely recognized image even for those who are not collectors themselves. Now the chance is coming up for the highest bidder to win an auction for a T206 Honus Wagner.

What is interesting about this Wagner specimen is that this is the so-called Jumbo Wagner, which has been graded as a PSA 5 by Collectors Universe Inc. (NASDAQ: CLCT). The card will be on display at the National Sports Collectors Convention in Atlanta City, New Jersey from August 3 to August 7 at the Goldin Auctions booth. It will not be until September that the auction is final.

What collectors (and investors) will want to know is that “The Jumbo Wagner” is the same exact specimen of the T206 Honus Wagner which sold through Goldin Auctions back in 2013 for a sum of $2.1 million. Goldin Auctions has noted here that it has been over 15 years since any of the other high-grade T206 Honus Wagner specimens were sold in a public sale.

Again, the last year or so has brought record-setting high prices for many high-end sports cards. Ken Goldin of Goldin Auctions told us back in 2013 that the auction for the T206 Honus Wagner was won by an investor who was not really a previous baseball card buyer.

We have seen record prices paid for 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle almost back to back, as well as records for other great auctions like the 1952 Topps Willie Mays blow-out premium, and other great sports cards at record prices. Goldin Auctions currently has a 1979/80 O-Pee-Chee Wayne Gretzky Rookie Card – PSA GEM MT 10 which was last seen with a $280,000 bid (and an estimate of $400,000 or more).

Ken Goldin, Founder of Goldin Auctions, said:

Serious collectors understand that every time a card like this is offered for auction, it may be the last time for a long time. The excitement that the auction of a T206 Wagner generates, coupled with the current booming market for high-grade trading cards, creates the perfect storm for establishing a new standard for sports memorabilia. With the tremendous increase in value of key trading cards, and influx of new collectors, the market has been clamoring for a high grade Wagner to come to market. We are pleased to offer one of the three highest graded examples and what many people consider the most desirable.

Investors are best known for buying art when it comes to collectibles of this nature. That may be opening up much more as some of the sports cards are fetching such high prices in 2015 and 2016.

The T206 Honus Wagner card has more specific history than most of the 60 or so known T206 Wagner samples. A prior record, which is still above this sample with a higher grade (PSA 8 for ‘The Gretzky Wagner’), sold for a sum of $2.8 million — and that card has been mired in controversy. And to see just how much this T206 Wagner is appreciating through time, that prior $2.1 million sale did beat the $1.6 million or so that the same card sold for back in harder times in 2008.

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For those of you who do not follow baseball much, or at all, chances are still very high that you have heard of the famed T206 Honus Wagner. There are believed to be only about 60 known samples of this card which still exist. The higher the grade, generally the higher the price. These cards can literally sell for millions of dollars. Samples of the card come up for sale a couple or a few times each year, and the price pattern generally has done nothing but rise.

This particular Honus Wagner card sample is even more special than most of the others. It is called the “Jumbo Honus Wagner” because it is larger in size than the other samples. It has been given a PSA 5 rating on a scale of 1 to 10, and it has an “MC” designation due to its size.

Back in 2013 I personally got a chance to see this particular T206 Honus Wagner for the first time in New York. It was then on display at the Audemars Piguet luxury watch store in New York City. Goldin Auctions said at that time prior to the card selling for $2.1 million:

The last time this card was offered for public sale was during the financial crisis in 2008. At that time the card auctioned off for $1.62 million. Since that time the average graded Wagner has appreciated 70% in value. We are opening this at a modest opening bid of $500,000 with no reserve.

Collectors often think that they know more about the T206 Wagner than they know about other sports and baseball cards. Still, there remains a mystery or a debate as to why the T206 Honus Wagner card is so scarce. Wagner was known to be anti-tobacco despite being a user of tobacco. That being said, there are other tobacco boxes and other tobacco cards with Honus Wagner from other sets in the same era — before after the famed T206 set years.

The T206 Wagner was issued by the American Tobacco Company. It was released in the years from 1909 to 1911, and it is believed that less than 200 Wagner cards were ever issued. American Tobacco stopped producing the famed T206 card after Wagner himself requested that his image not be used in the cigarette pack-issue and a card set from later in his life even showed Wagner with a large wad of chewing tobacco in his mouth.

Most collectors who have studied the case believe that perhaps a good old-fashioned contract dispute may have been the real issue here for why the production was stopped.

Wagner was perhaps the biggest name in professional baseball at the time, rivaling baseball giants like Ty Cobb, Walter Johnson and Christy Mathewson. Wagner was also in the inaugural class of the first five men inducted in the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York. Those 5 were Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb, Walter Johnson, Christy Mathewson — and Honus Wagner.

There are three other card-grading outfits which have graded samples of the famed card here. The PSA Population Report from Collectors Universe, Inc. has 34 graded samples. The SGC Population Report from SportsCard Guaranty LLC counts 12 samples that it has graded in variations.

PSA’s Card Facts site says of the T206 Honus Wagner:

This is the Holy Grail of all trading cards. This card, which resides in one of the most popular sets of all time, features one of baseball’s greatest players and it remains the symbol of trading card collecting. This card is also one of the great rarities, though it is not the scarcest in the hobby. That said, this card has taken on a life of its own and no card has ever sold for anywhere close to the sale of the finest example known, the famous PSA NM-MT 8. Once owned by hockey legend Wayne Gretzky and Bruce McNall, that copy sold for an astonishing $2,800,000 in 2007, the only seven-figure price ever paid for a trading card as of this writing. Even low-grade copies have sold for well over $100,000.

Keep in mind that most of the surviving Wagners have Sweet Caporal backs. Only a few exhibit Piedmont backs, which includes the finest example of them all.

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The image provided by 24/7 Wall St. at the 2013 auction did the card no justice because cameras on phones were not as good back then. This newer and more clear image has been provided by Goldin Auctions.

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