1958 Hires Root Beer #54 Charley Neal (Dodgers)

T-206 Honus Wagner tobacco cards have sold for upto $2.8 million in auction. The "Holy Grail of Sports Cards", it's extreme-high auction value can mostly be attributed to great PR and "auction fever". It's not close to being the rarest baseball card and Honus Wagner is not Babe Ruth or Mickey Mantle. Yes, the T-206 set is beautiful & special but because of the # of cards and scarcities, few collector's try to complete, which should keep auction competition down compared to say 1933 Goudey or 1952 Topps baseball card issues.
BUT IT DOES NOT...

There's a story Wagner banned his card because he was anti-tobacco but there are other stories about financial considerations.

You surely have heard of PSA and may even know that this card was the FIRST they ever graded. But did you know that dealer (B.l. .ast.o name encoded) admitted tampering with the card, perhaps having it trimmed down to size, before PSA graded it so highly for the auction.

Bowman again used hand-painted color reproductions of actual photographs. The 1951 Bowman card fronts were very similar to the 1950 set, with several players 1951 Bowman cards look like larger versions of their 1950 card.

Cards #243-#324 are scarce high numbers. The rookie cards of Mickey Mantle and Willie Mays are in this series making them very difficult to obtain.

TOP ROOKIES: Mickey Mantle, Willie Mays, Whitey Ford, Monte Irvin, Nellie Fox, Joe Garagiola, Jackie Jensen, Jim Piersall ...
TOP STARS: Ted Williams, Yogi Berra, Roy Campanella, Pee Wee Reese, Bob Feller, Warren Spahn, Duke Snider, Richie Ashburn & MORE !!!