The T206 Honus Wagner has become a cultural touchstone recognized far beyond the realm of the sports card world. With stories and record sales littering headlines for years, nearly everyone is aware of the famed Wagner “rookie” card.
But there’s one issue: As often as the popular press refers to the card as Wagner’s rookie, that has never been true.
Released in 1909-1911, by which point Wagner had already logged over a dozen years in professional baseball, cementing himself as the game’s top hitter while leading the league in batting average on seven different occasions, the T206 card may be his most valuable issue, but by no means is it his first.
The distinction of Wagner’s “true rookie card” belongs instead to a little-known tobacco card called the Reccius Cigars Honus Wagner, which is believed to have been released between 1897 and 1899. One such example, the sole PSA-graded copy, will be sold in Goldin’s inaugural Vintage Quarterly Auction later this month.
Just three copies are known to exist, one of which resides in the Baseball Hall of Fame. The other was found in recent years and believed to be ungraded.
The card’s sales history is limited given its immense rarity, which makes the T206 Wagner appear nearly plentiful by comparison.
Hunt Auctions sold a copy for $15,400 in 1998.
A PSA 1 example, now believed to be removed from its slab and displayed in the Hall of Fame, sold for over $52,000 at Lelands in 2006.
In 2012, Mike Tyson consigned the other PSA-graded example, an Authentic copy, to Lelands where it sold for $21,400.
The card was acquired by the current consignor around 2015, and had it reassessed by PSA (the previous grade had been given purely for authenticity rather than condition) and received it back as a PSA 1.
The card’s release came at the dawn of Wagner’s career and is the only issue to feature the shortstop in his Louisville Colonels uniform, a feature which Goldin’s Vintage Specialist Joseph Tomasulo finds to be of paramount importance.
Tomasulo, who often compares the card to the T206, says the Reccius card is “the perfect compliment” to the T206.
“How about the card depicting the “Flying Dutchman” in his first MLB uniform? What could be a better compliment to the T206,” Tomasulo asks, “than the card that pretty much is a transient link to his MLB origin?”
This notion of the card occupying the status as the true Wagner rookie card was the most attractive component for the consignor when putting together his collection over the past ten to 15 years.
“I would identify one or two of the best players in the history of the sport at that position, and then I was on the prowl to find the true rookie,” the consignor, who spoke under the condition of anonymity, told cllct. “I didn't care if it was T206 or not. For me, it was all about the rookies.”
A marketing ploy by Louisville cigar-maker Henry Reccius, who recognized the rising star’s popularity, utilized Wagner’s image in a promotion for his product. One of very few tobacco cards depicting Wagner, it provides an obvious connection to the T206.
This tie-in to the most famous baseball card in history is one which Tomasulo cites often, even using the sales history of both cards over time to arrive at what he deems an appropriate value — a difficult task given the rarity with which the Reccius card sells publicly.
Tomasulo uses the 2006 sale as a benchmark, comparing to T206 sales from the same period and extrapolating toward present day, arriving at a value of $1.5 million or more thanks to a 30x multiplier.
When pressed on whether or not it was indeed fair to use the T206 card, which has experienced growth and fanfare the likes of which no card has ever seen, to the little-known Reccius, Tomasulo doesn’t see an issue.
“Why not?” he asked. “This is significantly rarer. Keep in mind, if you want to own this card, one of them is in the Hall of Fame and the other is buried in a private collection.”
Tomasulo continued, saying that it’s a “world-class opportunity” for a collector due to the rarity.
“If someone can spend seven figures, they should not let this ship sail.”
There has been pushback regarding the dating of the card’s production (described by PSA as 1897 to 1899).
The card first surfaced at public auction in the late 1990s, dated as seen on the card offered at Goldin. Subsequently, the discovery of a cigar box using the image was dated to between 1919 and 1926 — investigative work resulting from a changed tax law believed to be responsible for a box label which would have only appeared after 1919.
This cigar box is said to come from a separate brand, according to Goldin, which says it has confirmed the detail with the National Cigar Museum.
Another important facet of the card, which supporters of the later-printed theory cite, involves the address listed on the card. The address was not associated with Reccius until 1904, however, an examination of four-digit phone codes, factory numbers and other contextual information included in Goldin’s description claim to validate the original, earlier dating.
“I love the unknown of when it was released. The year, as long as it’s pre-T206, doesn’t matter,” Tomasulo said. “It's the only card of Wagner in a Louisville uniform. And that, to me, is absolutely monumental.”
Interest in exceptionally-rare vintage tobacco cards has always been high, however a few recent results suggest surging interest. One of note is the Joe Doyle “error” card, the rarest card in the T206 set, which was sold for $1.323 million in 2023 at Robert Edward Auction.
There has also been increased prices in the market for Wagner cards writ large. Not only in the case of the T206, which has sold for over $7 million in recent years, but also for releases like the 1903 E107 Breisch-Williams Wagner (one of the six known copies sold for $348,000 in 2021) and the 1912 E300 Plow’s Candy Wagner (the only example in PSA’s census) notching $312,000 in 2022 at Heritage.
With comparisons to the T206 Wagner impossible to ignore, the Reccius sale will offer an opportunity for the card’s value to be tested in today’s market against the rapid appreciation of the T206.
This sale should also provide an answer to whether the true Wagner rookie will be accepted into collecting circles as a new blue chip grail ranking among the pantheon of vintage cards, or just an oddity of limited demand.
Will Stern is a reporter and editor for cllct.