The rarest baseball card in the world in up for auction at the Audemars Piguet Flagship Boutique in midtown Manhattan. The 1909 "cigarette" card has reportedly already been bid on for $1.5 million and could go all the way up to $3 million. The card itself has its own display in the baseball hall of fame in Cooperstown, New York and is widely considered the most valuable baseball card of all time. "The Honus Wagner card is the Mona Lisa, the Van Gogh of our industry," said Ken Goldin, the founder of Goldin Auctions. "You can be a casual baseball fan, but if there's one baseball card you've heard of — it's the Honus Wagner."
The last time a Wagner card was publicly sold was in 2012 for $1.2 million. Since then, the average Wagner card, depending on condition, has appreciated 70 percent in value.
The opening bid for the tiny piece of fine art was $500,000. Break open your piggy bank, the auction ends April 5.
The T206 Honus Wagner card was designed and issued between 1909 and 1911. But then Wagner refused to allow production of the card to continue either to prevent kids from buying cigarettes or because he wanted more compensation. It's estimated that there are anywhere from 60 to 200 of these cards worldwide.
The most famous T206 Honus Wagner is the "Gretzky T206 Honus Wagner" card. The card has a controversial past, as some speculate that it was once altered, based on the card's odd texture and shape. The Gretzky T206 Wagner was first sold by Alan Ray to a baseball memorabilia collector named Bill Mastro, who sold the card two years later to Jim Copeland for nearly four times the price he had originally paid. Copeland's sizable transaction revitalized interest in the sports memorabilia collection market. In 1991, Copeland sold the card to ice hockey figures Wayne Gretzky and Bruce McNall for $451,000. Gretzky resold the card four years later to Wal-Mart and Treat Entertainment for $500,000, for use as the top prize in a promotional contest.
The next year, a Florida postal worker won the card and auctioned it at Christie's for $640,000 to collector Michael Gidwitz. In 2000, the card was sold via Robert Edward Auctions to card collector Brian Seigel for $1.27 million. In February 2007, Seigel sold the card privately to an anonymous collector for $2.35 million. Less than six months later, the card was sold to another anonymous collector for $2.8 million. In April 2011, that anonymous purchaser was revealed to be Ken Kendrick, owner of the Arizona Diamondbacks.[2] These transactions have made the Wagner card the most valuable baseball card in history.
