I Just Finished Reading “The Card”

Last night I finished reading “The Card” which is about the world famous Honus Wagner T206 baseball card graded by PSA an 8.  Not only does the book talk about this card, but it talks about the hobby in general and how greedy and corrupt some people really are.  Many people believe that the card has been doctored and should never have been graded by PSA.  Others claim that it has never been doctored and has never been changed since it was printed almost 100 years ago.  A lot of people think that it was cut from a sheet by a human versus a machine.  Having a human cut a card from a sheet allows the collector to have total control over how well the edges are cut.  The original owner of the card says he has photos of it as an uncut sheet which would prove that it was indeed cut by a human.  I have yet to find any photos of the card when it was still part of a sheet.  You get a good glimpse of what Honus Wagner was like when he was alive.  He sounded like a really good guy and enjoyed children.  In the book it states that Wagner would let kids sneak in behind him at games so they wouldn’t have to pay.  I wonder how many players do that today?  I would highly suggest that any sports card collector read this book.  It is very educating and entertaining that all collectors would enjoy.

I saw “The Card” in August 2007 during the National Sports Collectors Convention.