by Fred Fuld III
If you had a baseball card and it had increased in value by 2363%, would you sell it?
Well the owner of a Honus Wagner baseball card did just that.
He paid $294,338 for it back in 2006, and recently sold it through a private sale for $7.25 million.
This works out to an average annual return of 22%.
This extremely rare slabbed Honus Wagner T-206 baseball card was authenticated by SGC.
The back of the card displays an ad for Sweet Caporal Cigarettes.
Honus Wagner, born Johannes Peter Wagner, was an American baseball shortstop who played 21 seasons in Major League Baseball from 1897 to 1917, almost entirely for the Pittsburgh Pirates.
Wagner won his eighth (and final) batting title in 1911, a National League record that remains unbroken to this day, and matched only once, in 1997, by Tony Gwynn. He also led the league in slugging six times and stolen bases five times.
Wagner was nicknamed “the Flying Dutchman” due to his superb speed and German heritage.
In 1936, the Baseball Hall of Fame inducted Wagner as one of the first five members. He received the second-highest vote total, behind Ty Cobb’s 222 and tied with Babe Ruth at 215.
Most baseball historians consider Wagner to be the greatest shortstop ever and one of the greatest players ever. Ty Cobb himself called Wagner “maybe the greatest star ever to take the diamond”.
Wagner was a non-smoker and reportedly didn’t want his card to promote cigarets, so production of the cards was stopped, with less than 60 known to exist.
If you have an interest in baseball and other sports cards, don’t forget to check out the following articles:
Investing in Old Collectable Baseball Cards: How to Get a Share for Free
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