Honus Wagner's card made him a legend.
The T206 is somehow more well-known than Wagner's Hall of Fame career.
Yet autographed Wagner memorabilia is progressively getting more expensive.
Last week, a single-signed Wagner ball, with an estimate of $25,000 to $50,000, sold at Hunt Auctions for $123,375, falling just short of the $126,000 record at Heritage in May 2021.
The Hunt signature was given a near mint 7 by PSA/DNA, matching a single-signed Wagner near-mint 7 sold by Goldin in 2013. That ball sold for $37,645.
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Wagner's signatures are not rare. He played for 21 seasons, and he coached for 19 more. For 10 years, the member of the initial Hall of Fame class had a sporting goods store in Pittsburgh, where fans could get his autograph.
There are plenty of Wagner-signed index cards, business cards and government postcards, and they are still relatively cheap compared to balls — he signed much fewer than Babe Ruth — but even those haven risen in value.
On Sunday, a Wagner-signed government postcard sold for nearly $2,000 at Grey Flannel Auctions, roughly three times the price of what the equivalent signature sold 10 years ago.
The T206 Wagner card, which continually seems to set records, has undoubtedly augmented the shortstop to relevancy and gets an audience of people who never saw him play — his last season was 1917 — more impetus to look up just how great he was.
There's no argument, both in hitting and fielding that he was the greatest shortstop ever. In 21 years of playing in the "Deadball Era," he won five batting titles, had a career average of .328 and had 3,420 hits. Using more modern stats, Wagner finished in the top 10 in OPS 15 times in his career.
Said Hall of Fame manager John McGraw: "You can have your (Ty) Cobbs, your (Nap) Lajoies, your (Hal) Chases, your (John Franklin) Bakers, but I'll take Wagner as my pick of the greatest."