The World Series is here. Yawn.. Sorry folks but I can’t get too excited about the Rangers versus the Giants. I am sure their fans are going wild and painting faces, tailgating in the living room and are as excited as baseball fans can get. All very cool if your fan of those teams. For me, the season ended when the Tigers once again limped to the end of the season. Well that is not entirely true, I am a Yankees fan after the Tigers and the Reds, so I had that going for a bit.
But it is the World Series and it is baseball, so huzzah for that. Here’s hoping it is an exciting series, good pitching duels, dramatic 9th inning game winning home runs and all that. But sports fans, that is not the only baseball story going ’round today.
That for my friends who may not know, is a Honus Wagner T206. So old Honus played for the Pittsburgh Pirates a hundred years ago and his card is very valuable. Why? Well the American Tobacco Company produced somewhere between 50 and 200 of them between 1909 and 1911. Apparently there is at most 60 cards available today, most in crappy condition. Collectors love this card and it is the hardest, and most expensive to get on the market to complete the set.
For me, an old baseball purist who loves the dead ball era, this is a better story then the World Series. It appears that an order of Nuns in Baltimore have just received a rather beat up Honus card from a the will of a benefactor. The gentleman in question had a sister that was in the order of nuns and when he passed on this year, he left all of his possessions to the order, including the very valuable Honus Wagner card.
The gentleman had the card since the 1930’s and he even left a note stating it should be worth quite a lot of money. He was right. The card should go for about $150,000-$200,000 at auction, even in a the beat up condition it is in. It probably got passed from kid to kid, rode a few bicyle spokes before it got to the collector. Still cool. As a side not, a near mint condition T206 Honus Wagner went for 2.8 million at auction this year. So yeah.. the card, even with creases and missing corners, is worth a few bucks.
This is a feel good baseball story, and I like that. The nuns get some much needed cash to do all the good things they do. The gentleman was very generous and helped the order his sister was a part of all her life. And too, some collector will get the much sought after card. A win-win for all involved. To me, much cooler then a World Series without my favorite teams.
It looks like someone put tape on it? *gasp* The HORROR.
Update…
The card sold for $262,000 at auction and the Nuns will receive $220,000 after the auction house takes it’s 19.5% fee. You would think for charity, the auction house could have waived the fee or at least cut it down a bit.
They are gonna spend it on hookers and blow.