The card: collectors, con men, and the true story of history's most desired baseball card
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.
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Published Reviews
Library Journal Review
The 1909-issued Honus Wagner tobacco baseball card, the T206 Wagner, is a rare collector's item indeed. Very few examples of it still exist because Wagner himself had it pulled early in the American Tobacco Company's distribution process. Several worn specimens are extant-and then there is the one that is the baseball collectors' holy grail: a rare and beautiful example, strangely flawless, that attracts million-dollar bids. But what-the authors ask-accounts for the pristine condition of this one example? O'Keeffe and Thompson, investigative journalists at New York's Daily News, use the card as a symbol of the hucksterism and questionable ethics involved in the booming business of sports collectibles. Their controversial book makes compelling reading even for those who may disagree with the authors' conclusions. Recommended for all libraries where books on collectibles and the collectibles industry circulate well. Libraries might want also to offer an earlier book, Pete Williams's Card Sharks: How Upper Deck Turned a Child's Hobby into a High-Stakes, Billion-Dollar Business, for more background information on the industry.-Paul Kaplan, Lake Villa Dist. Lib., IL (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Library Journal Reviews
The 1909-issued Honus Wagner tobacco baseball card, the T206 Wagner, is a rare collector's item indeed. Very few examples of it still exist because Wagner himself had it pulled early in the American Tobacco Company's distribution process. Several worn specimens are extant-and then there is the one that is the baseball collectors' holy grail: a rare and beautiful example, strangely flawless, that attracts million-dollar bids. But what-the authors ask-accounts for the pristine condition of this one example? O'Keeffe and Thompson, investigative journalists at New York's Daily News, use the card as a symbol of the hucksterism and questionable ethics involved in the booming business of sports collectibles. Their controversial book makes compelling reading even for those who may disagree with the authors' conclusions. Recommended for all libraries where books on collectibles and the collectibles industry circulate well. Libraries might want also to offer an earlier book, Pete Williams's Card Sharks: How Upper Deck Turned a Child's Hobby into a High-Stakes, Billion-Dollar Business, for more background information on the industry.-Paul Kaplan, Lake Villa Dist. Lib., IL Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information.
Library Journal Reviews
The 1909-issued Honus Wagner tobacco baseball card, the T206 Wagner, is a rare collector's item indeed. Very few examples of it still exist because Wagner himself had it pulled early in the American Tobacco Company's distribution process. Several worn specimens are extant—and then there is the one that is the baseball collectors' holy grail: a rare and beautiful example, strangely flawless, that attracts million-dollar bids. But what—the authors ask—accounts for the pristine condition of this one example? O'Keeffe and Thompson, investigative journalists at New York's Daily News , use the card as a symbol of the hucksterism and questionable ethics involved in the booming business of sports collectibles. Their controversial book makes compelling reading even for those who may disagree with the authors' conclusions. Recommended for all libraries where books on collectibles and the collectibles industry circulate well. Libraries might want also to offer an earlier book, Pete Williams's Card Sharks: How Upper Deck Turned a Child's Hobby into a High-Stakes, Billion-Dollar Business , for more background information on the industry.—Paul Kaplan, Lake Villa Dist. Lib., IL
Correction: In the review of Doug Aitken's Sleepwalkers (LJ 5/1/07), we misidentified Abrams as the distributor. D.A.P. is the correct distributor of Museum of Modern
[Page 125]. Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information.