Anyone Want to Buy a T206 Wagner for $25?
Stone193
Posts: 24,435 ✭✭✭✭✭
Well if you do, you will have to enter a time machine! I found this letter on a web site and thought it was too cool!
It was written by Charles Bray in 1958:
He says a clean card is worth 25 bucks and also he would pay 10 bucks for the Plank. And, then says:
"the rest of the cards are common" Is that incredible! Wow!
Here's a picture of Bray with Jeffer Burdick - the 'king' of sportscard collectors of all time.
I wonder if this one would be good enough for Bray to buy for 25$?
I really enjoy this kind of stuff - I'm hoping some of you do also?
mike
It was written by Charles Bray in 1958:
He says a clean card is worth 25 bucks and also he would pay 10 bucks for the Plank. And, then says:
"the rest of the cards are common" Is that incredible! Wow!
Here's a picture of Bray with Jeffer Burdick - the 'king' of sportscard collectors of all time.
I wonder if this one would be good enough for Bray to buy for 25$?
I really enjoy this kind of stuff - I'm hoping some of you do also?
mike
Mike
0
Comments
SD
Nice thread Mike
<< <i>I like where he says that the wagner (boston american) at times gets confused with the hans (natl lg) one. is that the one that Psa got confused with as well?
SD
Nice thread Mike >>
Thanx Steve
Was that the card that PSA actually typed in Honus Wagner on the flip and someone had it on ebay?
mike
wow, great piece.. those guys were "pioneers" of sportscard geeks everywhere..
BTW: i'll double his offer.
<< <i>I like where he says that the wagner (boston american) at times gets confused with the hans (natl lg) one. is that the one that Psa got confused with as well? >>
<< <i>Very cool. Speaking of t206's, I clearly remember going to the Lambertville/New Hope area flea markets - a huge area for weekend flea markets right outside Philly, a little north of Trenton...even back in the mid 1970s there were boxes and boxes full of t206's at some tables, ranging from Fair to VG-EX condition, flea market dealers trying to sell them for $1 apiece, and nobody was buying them. Most sellers weren't even card dealers...they just had many thousands of these "junk" baseball cards lying around that they were trying to get rid of - LOL. >>
I clearly remember the same thing. The Golden Nugget in Lamberville and Mary Fischer over in Lahaska both had a couple of indoor dealers also. There was also one in the old Mt Airy bowling alley that was converted into a "market". She had a nice collection of Topps high numbers and a nice clean PlayBall Dimaggio she wanted a whopping 50.00 for. The first Aaron rookie card I purchased came from Rice's Sale. A fellow had some glassware and knick-knacks on his table along with a handful of baseball cards layed out. I asked him if he had any others and he said yes, but they would cost a bit more because they were "special". He proceeds to pull a small paper bag out of his car with about 150 cards neatly piled in the bag. I grabbed a handful and proceeded to shuffle through them and couldn't believe the number of star players mixed in with commons. I knew this guy didnt have a clue other than "old baseball cards are worth money", so I tested the theory by asking him the price of a 54 common. 25 cents he says, and I shrug and put it back in the pile. I pulled out a nice clean Ex Aaron rookie, show it to him, and he says "Oh, Hank A-ron. Good player 50 cents". With a hard to hide smirk I knew I'd be home free with the rest of the stack. I passed on the 65 Koufax he wanted 3.00 for and just proceeded to cherry pick the 54's and 55's for between 25 cents and a buck and left with about 35 cards for 10.00, including a Clemente rookie, all his Mantle's and the Aaron.
Too bad I was into so much during the time period because I was also into old comics and had to split the money between the two hobbies. For every Human Torch golden age comic I picked up for 1-2 dollars I had to leave a 63 Mantle on the table. For every unbelievable "buy" you make in the hobby, the "should haves" always stand out more.....
<< <i>wow, great piece.. those guys were "pioneers" of sportscard geeks everywhere..
BTW: i'll double his offer. >>
<< I like where he says that the wagner (boston american) at times gets confused with the hans (natl lg) one. is that the one that Psa got confused with as well? >>
That's the one.
mike
Speaking of comic books, I also enjoyed comic books as a young boy and a bit later would buy the Mad and Cracked Magazines - all of which I still have. Of course most of these comics also really haven't appreciated greatly (with some exceptions) in value, again...especially compared to baseball cards. But I clearly remember as a young boy seeing the first edition Spiderman come in. A popular "General" store was only about a mile from my house, so on the weekends we would always walk over there to check out the latest cards and comics, buy what we could afford along with some candy and soda. They would always promote the first edition comics and would have dozens of them right in front on the shelves. I was of course a big fan of Superman and Batman, and enjoyed some other types of comics as well such as the Archie series. I remember thumbing through the beginning of this first edition Spiderman comic and thinking, "What a rediculous idea this is, being bit by a spider, etc." I thought this idea would never sell. Note that there were a number of first edition new character comics that seemed to consistently come out back then and many of them did not sell well. I don't believe that the Spiderman first edition sold all that well, because my friends thought the same thing about this rediculous idea for a superhero and didn't buy any. Besides we already had a "normal" type superhero in Batman so who needed Spiderman? - LOL. Man, I wish I had bought just one of those darn first edition Spidermans - LOL. I actually did start to like Spiderman a few years later and have a number of other Spiderman comics.
So the bottom line is whether it's a t206 Wagner or anything else, it is so tough if not impossible to know how valuable it's going to be even 5 or 10 years down the road, let alone 25 - 30 years. For each Wagner worth $25 bucks back in 1958 as Mike posted, I imagine there were dozens of other collectables from 1958 selling for $25 bucks that have hardly appreciated at all. You see this antique "junk" on ebay all the time - bottles, cans, etc, other printed materials, etc., etc., from the 1950s and back that ain't worth nothing - LOL.
Steve
I did my time in coins too, though it was my Grandfather and father pushing me in that direction. There was a time when two department store chains, Falk's and Major's, each had thier own coin department where you could buy the oversized currency for almost 2 to 1 on the dollar and worn indian heads for 5 cents each and worn standing liberty quarters for 35 cents. When it got to the point when the only coins I needed for my old Whitman coin books were things like a 16-D Mercury and 1909-S VDB, and taking a trip down to "Brownies" in Lambertville, I couldnt see paying the "then" astronomical prices for something I really couldn't relate to, or even hold in my hand unless my father took them down from the top shelf of the closet. The only thing that gave me an "inner peace" was amassing every old card and old comic I could, not just to put in sleeves, but to read and rearrange every week. I think what I liked the most was that the value really never meant anything, so there was really no "pressure" in the collecting.....
Mike, or anyone--I know about J. Burdick, but not about Bray or the other two. Any interesting history about them? I like the letter.
I collected Superman comics in the 60s--thought the stories were neat. Then, I actually had a subscription to Archie in the 60s. All that stuff is gone now, along with more stuff than I care to think about. That the stuff might actually have value didn't occur to me back then. But then, there wasn't much that occurred to me back then.
<< <i>Neat stuff.
Mike, or anyone--I know about J. Burdick, but not about Bray or the other two. Any interesting history about them? I like the letter.
I collected Superman comics in the 60s--thought the stories were neat. Then, I actually had a subscription to Archie in the 60s. All that stuff is gone now, along with more stuff than I care to think about. That the stuff might actually have value didn't occur to me back then. But then, there wasn't much that occurred to me back then. >>
Mac
It starts with Burdick...Burdick began publishing himself with the Card Collectors Bulletin beginning with a two-page issue mimeographed on one side dated January 1, 1937. In his first Bulletin he mentions that the interest in his Hobbies articles “shows that the hobby has real possibilities for development.” He writes that he is expecting to resume a small column in the magazine and the “cooperation of all collectors is asked in order to make it permanent.
In the 1940s he started to ask some of the subscribers to be included in the bulletin.
So his relationship with Bray started with a listing:
Charles Bray, Easton, Pa., (future long-time Bulletin editor) dealer and collector of early tobacco cards
Then Bray started advertising in the pub:
Charles Bray had purchased an old collection from someone in New Orleans and was offering it for sale. Bray ran a 5-line ad offering “mostly small 19th Century issues…at reasonable rates.” In this modest manner Bray began selling and later auctioning about any piece of cardboard under the sun through the Bulletin.
And finally Bray takes it over:
The big news in the June 1949 issue is that Burdick is turning over the Bulletin to Charles Bray who had taken over the auction portion of the Bulletin several years earlier.
This was the SCD of its time and there was really no other formal pub. When Burdick started, he had to take out space in a coin/stamp pub to get his word out before he started his own publication which was nothing more than the equivalent of a mimeographed letter (xerox precursor).
Then in 1953, it was decided to make a catalog like the Standard Catalog that Krause and Beckett put out:
Burdick announces plans for a 168-page 1953 Catalog that will be priced at $2 with 1,400 copies printed. The staff consists of Burdick as Managing Editor, Bray as Associate Editor in charge of Prices, Gene DeNardo as Associate Editor in charge of Copy Revisions, and Woody Gelman the Associate Editor in charge of Advertising and Publication.
These guys were pioneers! Is this great stuff or what!
mike