This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 10/7/2009
With the continual record-breaking prices realized for T206 Wagner examples in even the poorest conceivable conditions, any collectible featuring just the name "Honus Wagner," let alone his image, regularly receives unrivaled attention from pre-war enthusiasts. But what's most alluring about his highly coveted 1910 Tip Top Bread issue is not, in fact, its nearly identical appearance to the most famous baseball card ever produced, but the indisputable fact that far fewer Tip Top Wagners have surfaced at both leading grading companies than examples of his T206, which, as most accounts have it, was pulled very early from production because Wagner did not want to encourage young people to use tobacco (a sometimes disputed claim that Mile High was actually able to confirm with a former consignor whose father worked as the Head Color Artist for a possible subsidiary of American Lithographic). While we know that Wagner didn't mind promoting the consumption of bread and other baked goods, we'll never be able to confirm why, almost 100 years later, only 42 examples of his Tip Top card survive on record at both PSA and SGC combined (each of which have graded exactly 21 copies), compared to the approximately 60 known copies of the T206 (with 32 on record at PSA, about a dozen or more at SGC and other grading companies, and at least a dozen ungraded). What's even more remarkable about the Tip Top Bread issue is that not a single of the 42 examples on record has ever surpassed the EX/MT 6 plateau at either firm. At PSA, the presented PSA 2.5 specimen is a Pop 1 in its class, with just 7 higher, only 1 of which exceeds the VG/EX 4 tier, and that at the EX 5 level. In fact, only 7 examples from the entire set have ever surfaced above EX 5 at PSA (6 EX/MT 6s and a lone NM 7 at the top of the database). The numbers at SGC are almost the same, with just 5 of the 21 Wagners on record ever surpassing VG/EX 4, none of which have ever exceeded EX+ 5.5, and with only 3 of the 406 examples encompassing the entire submission pool ever attaining NM 7 status. What this boils down to is the fact that the offered specimen, despite its technically low opinion of GOOD+ 2.5, still statistically rates higher than the majority of submissions to both firms. More important than all of this, however, is the self-evident reality that none of the deficiencies responsible for the grade remotely impinge upon the integrity of the central image, which definitely cannot be said of all known T206s. A uniformly worn VG perimeter is slightly demoted by a handful of tolerable periphery creases, mostly emanating from the top edge down, but with a subtle 1/8 inch wrinkle also evident at the lower right border, extending from the edge to the tip of Wagner's left shoulder (viewer's right). As stated, none of these unobtrusive and largely insignificant imperfections come anywhere close to disturbing the image, which presents as a paradigm of the famous Carl Horner pose immortalized by the T206 set. Bold and predominantly resplendent, it flaunts a precision of image uncommon for the early days of lithography, with perfectly aligned colors rendering precisely perfect details with fine pixel-thin outlines. An exceptionally presentable Wagner scarcity, nearly identical to the famed T206 card except for its larger 1-13/16 by 2-3/8 inch canvas and the fact that 11 fewer of them have surfaced at PSA compared to the T206. If you refuse to spend the hundreds of thousands and even millions of dollars those hobby treasures command, we sincerely suggest you consider this presentable counterpart.