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Welcome to the NOVA-Antiques Blog
NOVA-Antiques is the Mid Atlantic website for all things antique and collectible. Our website features antique & collectibles dealers, shops & malls; Flea Market Directory & Reviews; Monthly Antiques Show Calendar; Estate & Tag Sales Page; and our NOVA-Antiques Newsletter, which contains news, articles and information about the antiques & collectibles market. NOVA-Antiques Blog is an extension of our Newsletters.
A Honus Wagner baseball card from 1909 sold at auction in Chicago yesterday for a near record of $1.62 million. The card was one of the earliest collectible baseball cards known to exist and came with cigarettes made by the American Tobacco Company. Another Honus Wagner card holds the record for price; it was sold in 2007 for $2.8 million. The card, known as a T206, was purchased at a sports memorabilia auction by John Rogers of North Little Rock, Arkansas and was probably first issued between 1909 and 1913.
Born Johannes Peter Wagner in 1874, Honus was one of nine children. He played shortstop from 1897 to 1917 for the Pittsburgh Pirates and was inducted into the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame in 1936. Many in the baseball world consider Honus Wagner one of the best all around baseball players that ever lived and certainly the best shortstop ever. When he retired in 1917, Wagner did so with more hits, runs, RBI’s, doubles, triples and steals than any other player. According to officials at Mastro Auctions, there are fewer than 100 Honus Wagner Cards known to exist and only 10 in mint condition.
The Library of Congress has a collection of 2100 of the most treasured baseball trading cards dating from 1887 to 1914 and features such legendary stars as Ty Cobb & Cy Young. The collection was donated to the Library by the poet and Lincoln biography writer Carl Sandburg. The collection was part of a larger collection of about 12,000 cards cataloged and preserved in albums by Benjamin K. Edwards.
The Library of Congress website states, “The mission of the Library of Congress is to make its resources available and useful to Congress and the American people and to sustain and preserve a universal collection of knowledge and creativity for future generations. The goal of the Library's National Digital Library Program is to offer broad public access to a wide range of historical and cultural documents as a contribution to education and lifelong learning."
A Honus Wagner baseball card from 1909 sold at auction in Chicago yesterday for a near record of $1.62 million. The card was one of the earliest collectible baseball cards known to exist and came with cigarettes made by the American Tobacco Company. Another Honus Wagner card holds the record for price; it was sold in 2007 for $2.8 million. The card, known as a T206, was purchased at a sports memorabilia auction by John Rogers of North Little Rock, Arkansas and was probably first issued between 1909 and 1913.
