Nuns hit the Mother load, a Honus Wagner T206

I am lucky enough in life to still have all the people I love around me so I've never experienced receiving an inheritance.  I'm sure when that time comes, I will not see anything like this left to me.

School Sisters of Notre Dame in Baltimore received a donation, left to them in a will, of the holy grail of baseball card collectors, "The Monster," a Honus Wagner T206.  Even in its poor condition, having been cut around the borders, creased in the upper right corner and shellacked, it is still expected to be sold at auction for $150,000 to $200,000.  Far from the record setting $2.8 million for a near mint condition T206 Wagner, but still an incredible amount of money.

The man who donated the card had owned it since 1936 and kept it in a safe-deposit box with a note that read, "Although damaged, the value of this baseball card should increase exponentially throughout the 21st century!"  Because the card had been privately owned, its existence was unknown.  With the addition of this card, the total number of T206 Wagners stands at 60.  

As I post this, the current bid is $180,000.  If you want to follow the auction, here is the link.  I'll post the final auction price when bidding has ended.

UPDATE:  The card sold at auction for $220,000.  With the buyers premium, the final price was $262,900.

Winning bids for Mantle, Mays, Robinson, Palmer and Brock Autographs

In the previous post I talked about The Topps Vault releasing contracts from the 1987 Topps K-Mart 25th Anniversary Baseball Trading card set and putting them up on EBay.  Well those auctions are now closed and the wining bids are in.  Here are the final prices paid, in US dollars, for the contracts behind the cards you see above.

Lou Brock - $129.50
Jim Palmer - $208.59
Brooks Robinson - $169.59
Willie Mays - $409.00
Mickey Mantle - $910.00

Did anyone following us have the winning bid?  What do you think of these prices?

Mantle, Mays, Robinson, Palmer and Brock Autos on the Auction Block

Some of you will remember my posts "Blue Light Special" and "Attention Shoppers" that covered the 1982 Topps K-Mart 20th Anniversary Baseball Cards. ( If you didn't get to read about these great trading cards, click on the titles above and the links will take you there.)


Topps also released a 25th anniversary issue of the K-Mart cards.  There were some differences between the two releases.  To see the diference here are the Mickey Mantle cards,

the Willie Mays cards,

 and the Brooks Robinson cards.

As a bit of inside information, Topps can't just go around printing whatever cards they want, even if they own the pictures, without written consent of the players involved.  There are contracts between Topps and the players.   In the contract, there is usually a time limit that Topps can reuse the players image and monetary payment involved.  And as with any contract, to show the player's acceptance, he must sign it.  In other words, put his autograph on that piece of paper.


Now The Topps Vault is pulling some of those contracts and making them available for purchase on EBay.  And the players above, Mantle, Mays and Robinson are three of the five contracts currently available.  The others are Jim Palmer and Lou Brock.


So if you want to buy the contracts behind these cards or just want to check out what they look like, you can view them at EBay using the following links.

1987 Topps K-MART Card Contract Mickey Mantle YANKEES

1987 Topps K-MART Card Contract Willie Mays GIANTS

1987 Topps K-MART Card Contract Brooks Robinson ORIOLES

1987 Topps K-MART Card Contract Jim Palmer ORIOLES

1987 Topps K-MART Card Contract Lou Brock CARDINALS