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The Card: Collectors, Con Men, and the True Story of History's Most Desired Baseball Card
by: Michael O'keeffe, Teri Thompson

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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 796
EAN: 9780061123931
ISBN: 0061123935
Label: Harper Paperbacks
Manufacturer: Harper Paperbacks
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 272
Publication Date: June 01, 2008
Publisher: Harper Paperbacks
Release Date: June 17, 2008
Sales Rank: 171840
Studio: Harper Paperbacks

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Product Description:

Only a few dozen T206 Wagners are known to still exist, having been released in limited numbers just after the turn of the twentieth century. Most, with their creases and stains, look like they've been around for nearly one hundred years. But one—The Card—appears to have defied the travails of time. Its sharp corners and still-crisp portrait make it the single-most famous—and most desired—baseball card on the planet, valued today at more than two million dollars. It has transformed a simple hobby into a billion-dollar industry that is at times as lawless as the Wild West. Everything about The Card, which has made men wealthy as well as poisoned lifelong relationships, is fraught with controversy—from its uncertain origins to the nagging possibility that it might not be exactly as it seems.

In this intriguing, eye-opening, and groundbreaking look at a uniquely American obsession, award-winning investigative reporters Michael O'Keeffe and Teri Thompson follow The Card's trail from a Florida flea market to the hands of the world's most prominent collectors. The Card sheds a fascinating new light on a world of counterfeiters, con men, and the people who profit from what used to be a pastime for kids.

Customer Reviews

Average Rating: out of 5 stars

Rating:

- A breezy read on an intriguing mystery
The story of the world's most expensive baseball card, the T206 Honus Wagner PSA 8 NM-MT, isn't very complicated. Unearthed in 1985, it has changed owners a handful of times, netting each one a tidy profit. Its whereabouts for its first 75 years of existence are unknown. The reasons for its rarity have been speculated on, but are ultimately unknown. Whether the card has been trimmed somewhere along the way, a big no-no in the card collecting world and, if ever determined to be true, would permanently mar the hobby, is unknown. While O'Keeffe and Thompson perform an admirable job of attempting to answer these unknowns in The Card, the reader is ultimately left unfulfilled.

What the authors do accomplish, however, is the painting of a vivid picture of the high end of sports card and memorabilia collecting. From the eccentric personalities involved to the back-room dealings to the heinous manipulation ... Read More

Rating:

- SO WHAT If It's Hand Cut?
First, let me say that this is, by far, the single greatest book ever written about the history of collecting. Even if you're not into cards, this book is a fast read which you absolutely will not be able to put down.

THAT BEING SAID, I strongly disagree with the very premise that a card which was hand-cut from a production sheet is somehow worthless.

THE Card is supposed to be "fake" or "worthless" because it has been "altered" or "trimmed". This is because it is designated PSA 8 NM-MT when PSA normally refuses to grade hand-cut cards.

In other words, PSA violates their own rules. I submit that it's not THE Card which is fake. It's PSA's RULES. They should get over their bias against hand-cut cards from production sheets and start grading them, the way they grade strip cards from the 1920's and 1930's.

99% of the vintage trading cards in existence were cut by ... Read More

Rating:

- Deal or No Deal
A person may have never collected one baseball card, but the T206 Wagner transcends that industry. And with any item worth millions of dollars, the pop culture publicity surrounding it has been a curse and a blessing.

Authors Michael O'Keeffe and Teri Thompson take the reader on a wild ride of the history of the Honus Wagner tobacco card through the fiction that has oftentimes shuffled the facts to the clubhouse and the legacy of "The Card," the ultimate T206 that is worth at least $2 million.

From cards as fake as the slimy smiles of a con-man to the high-stakes game in the art of the deal to obtain the ultimate collectible, the story is a home run that is hammered out of the stadium.

Rating:

- What a page-turner!
Wow! What a page-turner! Finished this in roughly 24 hours, something I haven't done in a long time.

I haven't been interested in baseball cards since I was about 13, and I haven't been interested in baseball too much in the past ten years, but this book brought me right back to where I was in my youth.

The book reads like a murder mystery that keeps you hooked, and tells all sorts of history about old time baseball cards, card collectors, Honus Wagner himself, and unfortunately all the card crooks found within the hobby.

Highly recommended!!

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