(Photo: $2.35 million Honus Wagner baseball card, Courtesy of Michael O'Keeffe)
Tom Fudge: The most valuable baseball card in the world is one that was sold to an anonymous California collector earlier this year. The price was more than $2 million. It's a 1909 card of Honus Wagner, considered to be perhaps the greatest shortstop of all time and certainly one of the sport's great players. The card was originally sold in packets of cigarettes. Word has it that Wagner didn't like the idea of kids having to buy tobacco to get baseball cards. So the card was discontinued very quickly. Hence its value today.
The one that was sold for more than $2 million is a card once owned by hockey great, Wayne Gretsky. And it is clearly the most pristine of the so-called T206 Wagner cards. But why is it in such good shape, and is it really worth the price tag?
Guest
- Michael O'Keeffe is a journalist and member of the New York Daily News sports investigation team. He is the co-author of the book, The Card: Collectors, Con Men, and the True Story of History's Most Desired Baseball Card.
