It’s the most famous baseball card in history — and often the most valuable.
Yet despite millions of dollars spent on cards in 2024, not a dime went toward the purchase of a T206 Honus Wagner card.
It marks the first time since 1994 that a full year went by without one of the famed Wagners changing hands at public auction (or in a publicly reported private transaction).
Considering any of the few dozen examples are worth well more than $1 million — with the possible exception of the “half Wagner,” which sold for nearly $500,000 in 2022 despite literally being torn in half — the absence of the card has left a gaping hole in the market.
These days, plenty of cards are capable of fetching seven-figure sums — the year’s most expensive sale belongs to the $3 million paid in a private transaction for a 1993 Magic: the Gathering card.
Yet, Wagner's place as an annual stalwart in the industry’s top yearly sales is hard to ignore considering the number of card sales of more than $1 million in 2024 was down to seven, falling from 11 in 2023, the lowest since 2019.
The most recent sale of a T206 Wagner came in September 2023 for a PSA Authentic/Restored copy, which sold for nearly $2 million. That was the only sale of 2023. There were previously five sales in 2022 and 2021 each.
It’s not as if the T206 Wagner has been totally absent from the hobby this year. As previously reported by cllct, a newly discovered example surfaced with a lofty grade of SGC 5, which was valued by Ken Goldin at $25 million.
The owner of the card, collector Steve Lichtman, acquired it in 2021 after it sat ungraded in a safety deposit box for 45 to 50 years.
Though there might not have been any recorded sales this year, Lichtman says there remains “unbelievable demand” for low-grade copies of the card. He also says, due to the “explosive price appreciation,” owners have not been willing to sell.
“Honestly a month doesn’t go by now where someone isn’t asking me if I know where a Wagner is to buy,” Lichtman said. “In this industry of extreme price volatility and uncertainty, it’s the one bedrock that always appears to be a solid place to park your money.“
The price appreciation is one of the card’s most intriguing attributes. Famously, no one has ever sold a copy for less than they bought it for, as far as one can ascertain from sales records.
As Lichtman references, recent years have yielded incredible returns for holders of the card. The $7.5 million private sale of an SGC 2 copy in August 2022 was more than double the price paid for another PSA 2 just 14 months prior.
"I think the fact that Wagner cards, even the bottom of the barrel examples, have reached such stratospheric heights, the only folks able to afford them are collectors who won't need to sell them anytime soon," industry insider and "Antiques Roadshow" appraiser Simeon Lipman told cllct. "I believe there will be less and less of them on the market moving forward. The prices will continue to rise on those few that do up."
Will Stern is a reporter and editor for cllct.