When the hammer fell at Mile High Card Company on Saturday night for the $1.98 million sale of a T206 Honus Wagner card, one could be forgiven for thinking this was an extraordinary result.
A restored, PSA Authentic copy achieving such heights seems, at first glance, like a massive success for the seller and the high-end and vintage markets overall.
In truth?
This is a four-alarm fire for the market of the most important card in the history of collecting.
It’s a common refrain that nobody has ever lost money on a T206 Honus Wagner card. This notion, when taken to mean nobody has ever sold a T206 Wagner for a lower price, including buyer’s premium, than they bought it for, is seemingly true.
That rule lived to fight another day after the Wagner sold this weekend for just $12,000 more than it did in 2023, when it sold last, also at Mile High. Notably, out of the roughly 60 examples in existence, it was this same Wagner which most recently sold at public auction.
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Some have argued the seller likely lost money as that $1.98 million is inclusive of buyer’s premium. This might or might not be true — auction houses often offer attractive incentives such as negative consignment rates to lure big-ticket items.
Regardless, the sale is likely the worst return for a Wagner in history.
Looking at the Compound Annual Growth Rate of the previous five public sales of Wagner cards prior to this weekend, the dramatic disappointment of this result comes into even more stark relief.
In March 2022, a PSA 1 copy — the “Charlie Sheen Wagner” — sold for $3,136,500, a CAGR of around 20% during the years since its previous public sale in 2013 for $402,900.
In April 2022, a PSA Authentic copy sold for $1,528,066, a CAGR of nearly 50% since its previous public sale in 2019 for $540,000.
In August 2022, an SGC 2 copy sold privately for $7.5 million, a CAGR of more than 17% since its previous public sale in 2006 for $294,338.
In October 2022, a PSA 1.5 copy sold for $3,720,000, a CAGR of more than 40% since its previous public sale in 2021 for $2,280,000.
Finally, the same card the sold this past weekend achieved a CAGR of more than 36% between its sale in 2021 for $1,102,806 and its sale in 2023 for $1,968,000.
CAGR between that 2023 sale and this weekend? 00.37%.
A grail that is touted as the crown jewel of investment-worthy collectibles — and has proven to be worthy of such a distinction time and time again — just got outperformed by a T-bill.
Now, there are contributing factors here that suggest this sale is not a fair representative of the market. For one, the card was flipped extremely quickly—so fast, in fact, no other Wagner was sold publicly in the interim.
Another possibility is the announcement of another Wagner coming to auction shortly at Goldin — a higher-grade, unrestored copy — could have diverted the attention of potential bidders. Perhaps people were holding out.
But given the fact last year marked the first calendar year in three decades without a public transaction of one of the Wagners, one would think there was plenty of cash waiting on the sidelines.
Is this a blip, or is this the start of a major correction?
It’s too early to tell, but this is a bad sign for the market of the hobby’s most famous card.
Will Stern is a reporter and editor for cllct, the premier company for collectible culture.