The T206 Honus Wagner baseball card depicts the Pittsburgh Pirates' Honus Wagner, known as "The Flying Dutchman", a dead-ball era baseball player who is widely considered to be one of the best players of all time. The card was designed and issued by the American Tobacco Company (ATC) from 1909 to 1911 as part of its T206 series. Wagner refused to allow production of his baseball card to continue. While Wagner was a tobacco user himself, he may have objected to the card's inclusion with tobacco products due to a personal objection to tobacco, though this objection is disputed. The ATC ended production of the Wagner card, and a total of only approximately 50 to 200 cards were ever distributed to the public; the exact number is unknown. In 1933, the card was first listed at a price value of $50 in Jefferson Burdick's The American Card Catalog (), making it the most expensive baseball card at the time.
The most famous T206 Honus Wagner is the "Gretzky T206 Honus Wagner" card, so-called because at one point it was owned by Wayne Gretzky. The card's odd texture and shape led to speculation that it was altered. The Gretzky T206 Wagner was first sold by Alan Ray to baseball memorabilia collector Bill Mastro, who sold the card two years later to Jim Copeland for nearly four times the price he had originally paid. Copeland's sizable transaction revitalized interest in the sports memorabilia collection market. In 1991, Copeland sold the card to ice hockey figures Wayne Gretzky and Bruce McNall for $451,000. Gretzky resold the card four years later to Walmart and Treat Entertainment for $500,000 for use as the top prize in a promotional contest. The next year, a Florida postal worker won the card and auctioned it at Christie's for $640,000 to collector Michael Gidwitz. In 2000, the card was sold via Robert Edward Auctions to card collector Brian Seigel for $1.27 million. In February 2007, Seigel sold the card privately to an anonymous collector for $2.35 million. Less than six months later, the card was sold to another anonymous collector for $2.8million (equivalent to $ million in ). In April 2011, that anonymous purchaser was revealed to be Ken Kendrick, owner of the Arizona Diamondbacks.
A different card, named the "Jumbo Wagner", was sold at auction again in 2016 for a record $3.12million (equivalent to $ million in ). These transactions have made the Wagner card, at times, the most valuable baseball card in history. However, this record was first broken when a Mike Trout 2009 Bowman Chrome Draft Prospects Superfractors series rookie card with a card count of 1 sold in August 2020 for a new record of $3.93million (equivalent to $ million in ), and pushed further back by a 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle card that sold for $5.2million (equivalent to $ million in ) in November 2020, until another T206 Wagner sold for $6.6million (equivalent to $ million in ) in August 2021, returning the T206 to the most expensive sports card — that is, until August 2022, when another 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle card sale increased the record to $12.6million to become the most expensive sports card of any type in history. The record was broken again on August 23, 2025 when a 2007-08 Upper Deck Exquisite Collection dual logoman autographs of Kobe Bryant and Michael Jordan, serial numbered 1/1 (unique), sold for $12.9 million dollars.
In October 2013, Bill Mastro, CEO of Mastro Auctions (the owner of Robert Edward Auctions), pleaded guilty to mail fraud in U.S. District Court and later admitted to the court that he had trimmed the "Gretzky" Wagner card to sharply increase its value.
Other T206 Wagners, both legitimate and fake, have surfaced in recent years. Some of the real cards have fetched hundreds of thousands of dollars in auctions. One particular T206 Honus Wagner owned by John Cobb and Ray Edwards has attracted media controversy over its authenticity.
Background
The American Tobacco Company was formed as a result of an 1889 merger of five major cigarette manufacturers: W. Duke & Sons & Company, Allen & Ginter, Goodwin & Company, F. S. Kinney Company and William S. Kimball & Company. Because the company came to monopolize the tobacco industry, ATC did not have to conduct advertising or promotions for its products. Since baseball cards were primarily used as a sales promotion, ATC removed them from its tobacco packs, almost driving the cards into obsolescence. During the presidency of "trust-buster" Theodore Roosevelt, the ATC was subjected to legal action from the government, in hopes of shutting down the monopoly in the industry.
Thereafter, the ATC was back in competition with other tobacco companies, so it reinserted baseball cards into cigarette packs. In 1909, the company introduced the T206 series – also known as the "white border set" – of baseball cards of 524 players into its cigarette packs. The cards were printed at seven factories in New York, North Carolina, Ohio and Virginia. Two years later, the ATC was broken up into several major companies as part of the United States Supreme Court ruling in United States v. American Tobacco Company, 221 U.S. 106 (1911).
Physical attributes and production The typical card in the T206 series had a width of and a height of . Some cards were awkwardly shaped or irregularly sized, which prompted a belief that many of the cards in the series had been altered at one point or another. In his work Inside T206: A Collector Guide to the Classic Baseball Card Set, Scot A. Reader wrote that "[i]t is not at all uncommon to find T206 examples that have been altered at some point during their near-century of existence." These discrepancies were taken advantage of by so-called "card doctors", who trimmed corners and dirty edges to improve the appearance of the card. The front of all T206 series cards, including the Wagner card, displayed a lithograph of the playerReader, p11. created by a multi-stage printing process in which a number of colors were printed on top of each other to create a lithograph with the appropriate design. The backs of the cards featured the monochromatic colors of the 16 tobacco brands for which the cards were printed.Reader, p12. The Wagner cards in particular advertised the Piedmont and Sweet Caporal brands of cigarettes and were produced at Factory 25 in Virginia, as indicated by the factory stamp imprinted on the back of the cards.Reader, p45.
Wagner's involvement
Starting from January 1909, the ATC sought authorization from baseball players for inclusion in the T206 series, which would feature 524 major league players, 76 of whom would later be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame.Reader, p9. Wagner had been at the top of his game throughout the decade, and was even considered to be the game's greatest player at the time.James, p132. He had appeared on advertisements for a number of other products such as chewing gum, gunpowder, and soft drinks. Unsurprisingly, the ATC asked for Wagner's permission to have his picture on a baseball card. According to an October 12, 1912, issue of The Sporting News, Wagner did not give his consent. In response to the authorization request letter sent by John Gruber, a Pittsburgh sportswriter hired by the ATC to seek Wagner's permission, Wagner wrote that he "did not care to have his picture in a package of cigarettes." He threatened to seek legal action against ATC if they went ahead and distributed his baseball card.
The reasons for Wagner's strong negative reaction to the ATC's request have been the subject of much speculation. The most commonly told account is that Wagner rejected the deal because he did not want young baseball fans to purchase the tobacco packs for his baseball card. Wagner held his fans in high regard, particularly the younger ones. His granddaughter, Blair, remarked that "[h]e loved children. He wanted to teach kids good sportsmanship. When it came time for that card to come out, it wasn't that he wasn't paid. He didn't want kids to have to buy tobacco to get his card." However, Wagner chewed tobacco, and he had previously appeared in advertisements for many tobacco products, including a cigar baseball trading card in 1899 and a newspaper ad for Murad cigarettes during the 1909 World Series.
Another explanation surmised is that Wagner did not consent because he felt he was not receiving just compensation from the ATC for his baseball card. Wagner had a history of being a tough negotiator; he had announced his retirement from baseball in December 1907, but returned shortly before the start of the 1908 season after receiving a $10,000 ($ in ) contract, double his salary from the 1907 season. This theory has its flaws, however, since Wagner sent Gruber a check for $10 to compensate him for the fee ATC would have paid him if Wagner had given permission to create his baseball card. Michael O'Keeffe and Teri Thompson, authors of The Card: Collectors, Con Men, and the True Story of History's Most Desired Baseball Card, asked why Wagner would compensate Gruber for $10, a substantial amount of money at the time (), if he refused authorization for monetary reasons. The ATC had already produced a number of T206 Honus Wagner baseball cards; the exact number is unknown, but is speculated to be between 50 and 200. They stopped production of the card, however, after Wagner denied authorization.
Gretzky T206 Wagner
In 1991, National Hockey League player Wayne Gretzky purchased a mint condition 1909 T206 Honus Wager baseball card, with a Piedmont cigarette brand back, at a Sotheby's auction. The card became known as the "Gretzky T206 Wagner" to the public. The Professional Sports Authenticator (PSA) company graded this card a PSA 8 Near Mint-Mint (NM-MT) on their 10-point scale,The PSA grades card based on a 1–10 scale. As from the description from the PSA Sports Card Grading Standards , NM-MT 8: "A ticket of this quality will appear to be a Mint 9 at first glance but one of the following additional defects may be present. Very light "touches" at two corners, apparent to the naked eye, would be acceptable under this standard. A very slight surface abrasion or evidence of modest surface damage, on the front or back, may be acceptable if limited. For instance, a faint impression from a paper clip would be an example of this type of acceptable defect. "Medium to Medium/Dark" printing of crucial game information is required. Centering must fall within approximately 60/40 to 65/35 or better on the front and back." the highest grade given to any T206 Honus Wagner card. Bill Hughes, working for PSA at the time, was the official grader of the card. Hughes admitted to knowing that the card had been altered when he graded it.
The Gretzky T206 Wagner first came to attention in 1985, when small-time Hicksville, New York card collector Alan Ray contacted Bob Sevchuk, the owner of a Long Island sports memorabilia store, to arrange a potential $25,000 deal for his T206 Honus Wagner card.Only two T206 Honus Wagner cards featuring the Piedmont cigarette brand on the back of the card exist today. The other Piedmont-backed card belongs to a collector from Virginia. Bill Mastro, a sports memorabilia dealer who later founded Mastro Auctions and became one of the most powerful figures in the industry, heard the news, and immediately jumped on the offer. Mastro, with the financial backing of friend Rob Lifson, sought to improve the offer and had Ray add 50 to 75 of his other T206 series cards, including the rare T206 Eddie Plank, into the deal. Ray, who later stated he "had a money situation," agreed to Mastro's terms of the deal.