1964 Challenge the Yankees #47 Duke Snider (Mets)
| Grade | EX/EX+ |
|---|---|
| Book Value | $ 30 |
| Our Price |
$ 12.50
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|
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Auction's most costly vintage baseball cards
The history of vintage baseball card auctions is long and colorful.
Over 5,000 vintage sports and non-sports items in each weekly auction
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. 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.
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1972 Manama |
1985 Leaf BaseballIn 1985 Donruss created a special version of its baseball cards (1985 Leaf) in an attempt to enter the Canadian baseball card market. Except for the addition of a colorful green leaf, the card fronts were virtually identical to Donruss cards. The most interesting difference occurred on the back where the Leaf cards featured text in both French and English !At only 264 cards, the Leaf set was much smaller than Donruss with it's 660 cards. But ... because of it's smaller set size the Leaf set has a much higher percentage of star cards. There was also a special two-card "Canadian Greats" subset with paintings of Dave Stieb and Tim Raines. Top rookies are: Roger Clemens, Kirby Puckett, Orel Hershiser, Dwight Gooden and Mark Lamgston. |
Starting approximately in 1886, sportscards, mostly baseball cards, were often included with tobacco products, for promotional purposes and also because the card reinforced the packaging and protected cigarettes from damage. These sports cards are referred to as tobacco cards in the baseball card hobby. Over the next few years many different companies produced baseball cards. Tobacco cards soon started to disappear as the American Tobacco Company tried to develop a monopoly by buying out other companies.
They were reintroduced in the 1900s, as American Tobacco came under pressure from antitrust action and Turkish competition. The most famous and most expensive, baseball card is the rare T206 Honus Wagner. The card exists in very limited quantities compared to others of its type because Wagner forced the card to be removed from printing. It is widely (and incorrectly) believed that Wagner did so because he refused to promote tobacco, but the true explanation lies in a dispute over compensation.
Soon other companies also began producing baseball and football cards. Sports magazines such as The Sporting News were early entries to the market. Candy manufacturers soon joined the fray and reflected a shift toward a younger target audience for cards. Caramel companies were particularly active and baseball cards were one of the first prizes to be included in Cracker Jacks. World War I soon suppressed baseball card production.
