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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1938 Horrors of War - Gum Inc.One of the most famous card sets of all time, it began as a 240-card set featuring the Chinese-Japanese War, the Spanish Civil War and the Ethiopian War. 48 cards were later added on Germany and the buildup to World War II.Cards #25-192 appear to be slightly more common than the others cards in the series. Cards 241-288 are similar to more recent high numbers in that each pack held one card from the high series and one card from the low series. The set is extremely popular and card "values" have increased ten-fold since the early 1990s. Cards #1, #240, #277, #283, #286 & #288 are particularly valuable, especially in prime condition. |
1970/1972/1973 Topps Candy Lids |
Series are groups of cards in an issue released together. Example: Series #1 (cards #1-100) are released in April; Series #2 (#101-200) released in July; and so on. This allowed kids to easier complete sets. A side-effect was the creation of scarce "High Numbers".
Short Print (SP) is a card printed in lesser quantity than other cards in the set. Recent short prints are often serially-numbered.
Team Set is a group of all the cards of players for a certain team.
Test Issue is a small printing by a card company to see if products are of interest to collectors. Some of Topps neatest items are "Test Issues" like 1956 Topps Pins & 1974 Topps Puzzles.
Tobacco Card is typically from the early 1900's and were issued with tobacco products, the most famous of which is the T-206 Honus Wagner card.
Traded/Update Set is a set issued after the original issue primarily featuring rookies or players who were traded since the original issue came out.
Trimmed Card is a card reduced in size mostly to hide damaged edges or corners. Trimmed cards have very little value compared to the un-trimmed version. In some cases such as the 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle, even trimmed cards can go for thousands. The most famous 'trimmed' card is the T206 Honus Wagner purchased by Wayne Gretzky. The card was actually too large before it was trimmed down to size.
Unauthorized Issue is a card release which is not licensed by the league, player's association or player.
Variation is a card printed by the manufacturer that differs in some way from the normal card.
Wax Pack is a generic term for a pack of cards. The "wax" came from a time when packs were sealed in wax paper wrappers. Today it is still used for packs even though they no longer use wax paper.