Recently Sold PSA 2 Honus Wagner T206 Card Headed to Auction Block

Posted on May 31, 2019 by Pre-War Cards

Mile High Card Company announced the Honus Wagner T206 card will appear in their fall auction

Yesterday, I mentioned the sale of a PSA 2 Honus Wagner T206 card. The sale went through SCP Auctions and the card sold privately for $1.2 million.

Some more information was released via the Net54 site as Brian Drent of the Mile High Card Company indicated the card would be their October auction as it was consigned to them. As in, October of this year.

The decision to sell it at this point seems … interesting?

Now, far be it from me to tell anyone when to buy/sell their cards. No one should do that. For one thing, people decide to sell cards for all sorts of reasons. However, the idea to sell such a card after buying it so recently just doesn’t happen all that much.

For what it’s worth, the Net54 thread also indicates the card was sold several months ago and it won’t be sold by Mile High until October. Technically, that means it will have been off the block for almost a year so it’s not exactly being flipped in a week’s time or anything like that. Still, that’s a fairly short turnaround time for a card of this magnitude.

Here’s the thing. The card was reportedly bought at much more than what it last sold at in 2016. And while cards have certainly increased in value since then, the $1.2 million paid for it seems to be on the high end. After all, it was previously sold in 2016 for $776,750. And why do you sell a card? To hopefully turn a profit, obviously.

Also consider that, in an auction, a buyer will presumably have a Buyer’s Premium. That, along with Seller Premiums (which are sometimes charged), is generally how auction companies make their money. And if you’re a buyer that has to fork out 20% (Mile High’s stated Buyer Premium amount), you don’t need me to tell you that’s a significant amount on a card with so much value. Prospective buyers obviously factor that amount into their bid and that means they won’t pay as much as they would in a private sale. If Mile High holds to their 20% Buyer Premium here and assuming the seller will have no premium, the card would need to sell for significantly more than the already high amount paid for it to realize a profit.

Now, it should be noted that the restrictions from a Buyer’s Premium can be offset some by bidders going at it in the heat of the moment. Too much is made of Buyer’s Premiums in my mind. For example, while a buyer may offer only so much in a private sale, they could pay more than they anticipated in an auction setting where he/she is determined to win. Auction formats often bump prices up to higher values than they would have achieved in a straight sale because they can become, excuse the language, pissing contests. But in general, buyer premiums are factored in by bidders and, as a result, probably help keep prices down a bit.

So what’s the deal here? Beats me. On the surface, this would seem to make little sense. The sale price could make sense. Wagner T206 cards don’t come up for sale everyday and it isn’t hard to imagine an anxious buyer overpaying a bit. But to see said buyer turn around and then dump the card is the confusing part — at least without knowing the specifics.

Often, buyers sit on high-dollar cards such as these and hope they appreciate in value. That, by the way, has been a pretty solid strategy with prices taking off in recent years. Flipping of cards like this is usually done when such a card is bought at a bargain price, which this doesn’t appear to be.

But let’s see where this one ends up.