Two Roman Catholic nuns will auction off a Honus Wagner baseball card that could be worth up to $200,000. The brother of a nun who died in 1999 left all of his possessions to the order, which included the Wagner baseball card.
From SI.com:
The card is part of the T206 series, produced between 1909 and 1911. About 60 Wagner cards are known to exist.
A near-mint-condition T206 Wagner card sold in 2007 for $2.8 million, the highest price ever for a baseball card. Muller remains aghast that the 1 1/4-inch-by-2 1/2-inch piece of cardboard could sell for even a fraction of that.
“It just boggles your mind,” Muller told The Associated Press. “I can’t remember a time when we have received anything like this.”
The brother of a nun who died in 1999 left all his possessions to the order when he died earlier this year. The man’s lawyer told Muller he had a Honus Wagner card in a safe-deposit box.
When they opened the box, they found the card, with a typewritten note: “Although damaged, the value of this baseball card should increase exponentially throughout the 21st century!”
The card was unknown to the sports-memorabilia marketplace because the nuns’ benefactor had owned it since 1936.
I grew up in a time when baseball cards still held value. My dad used to buy me a Topps baseball set every year for Christmas and now they’re all in storage because nobody buys/trades the damn things anymore.
It’s good to hear that there are still collectors out there and good for these nuns. This is why you say your prayers at night. (I kid, I kid…)
