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Fewer than 60 Wagner cards were sold. |
Why is it worth so much? Simply because Wagner didn't want to promote smoking. Back when baseball cards were all the rage, they were produced by tobacco companies and sold to the public in cigarette boxes. However, Wagner didn't like the idea of promoting the nasty habit, so when Sweet Caporal and Piedmont began including his card in their cigarette boxes, he declined to participate.
Because of the timing of his decision, fewer than 60 Wagner cards were sold before he decided to have them pulled from shelves, and one of those cards will cost you a pretty penny if you're thinking of adding it to your collection.
Brian Siegel, the collector who purchased a Wagner card for $1.1 million, has been collecting baseball cards since he was 10 years old. The man who owned it before him, Michael Gidwitz, said he had fun putting the card up for sale on eBay. The card was on the site for 10 days, but in order to bid on it, pre-registered users had to deposit $100,000 in escrow and place bids in $50,000 increments.
The card, which has passed through the hands of Wayne Gretzky, Bruce McNall, Treat Entertainment, Patricia Gibbs, Gidwitz, and now Seigel, was purchased by Gidwitz for $640,000. He is the first person to ever sell a baseball card for more than $1 million.
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