Yes, you read that right: half. The card in question is the ‘forbidden’ 1909 Honus Wagner card. But do you know why this holy grail card is so-coveted by collectors? Baseball card collector and MLB fan, Gianmarco Castronovo explains:
The 1909 Honus Wagner baseball card is so rare and coveted by collectors, that they’ll even settle for half of a card. Not only settle — they’ll even dish out nearly half a million dollars just to have the piece in their possession. This past weekend, a torn half of an Honus Wagner card went for a total of $475,960 at a SCP Auctions event. Quite the bargain, when you consider that a fully intact Honus Wagner card raked in $6.6 million last summer.
It turns out, collectors are going crazy for this card not only because of how old it is. No, the allure sparkles brighter than antiquity alone. It all comes down to scarcity that has been alive and well since the cards first hit the market in Wagner’s glory days. In fact, they never technically hit the market at all, as the legendary Hall of Famer would not allow the card to be distributed. It’s unclear why he made this decision; Gianmarco Castronovo and other collectors speculate that it could have had something to do with a lack of compensation from the distributor, the American Tobacco Company. Either way, there were only between 50 and 200 of these cards ever printed, making even a fragment worth a pretty penny — or 4,7596,000!
