T206 Honus Wagner - Gretzky T206 Honus Wagner

Gretzky T206 Honus Wagner

William "Bill" Hughes personally graded and encapsulated the “Most Valuable Baseball Card in the World”, ultra-rare 1909 T-206 Honus Wagner card that was once owned by hockey Hall-of-Famer Wayne Gretzky, presently valued at over $3,000,000.00.

In 1985, a small-time Hicksville, New York card collector named Alan Ray contacted Bob Sevchuk, the owner of a local Long Island sports memorabilia store, to arrange a potential $25,000 deal for his mint condition Piedmont-backed T206 Honus Wagner baseball card. Bill Mastro, a sports memorabilia dealer who later founded Mastro Auctions and became one of the most powerful figures in the industry, heard the news, and immediately jumped on the offer. Mastro, with the financial backing of his friend, sought to improve the offer and had Ray add 50 to 75 of his other T206 series cards, including the rare T206 Eddie Plank, into the deal. Ray, who later stated he "had a money situation", agreed to Mastro's terms of the deal.

The circumstances regarding how Ray came in possession of the Wagner card have been shrouded in mystery. He tried to avoid answering any questions regarding the matter but, in a 2001 interview, claimed to have received it from a relative, whose name he did not disclose. Inside the memorabilia community, there was speculation that the card had been cut from a printing sheet during the deal made with Mastro. Mastro has told colleagues in the memorabilia circuit that he purchased the card from a printer, which was not Ray's profession. Ray personally stated that Mastro might have been doing this to prevent others from trying to trace the card. Some also claim that Mastro bought the card from Sevchuk, not Ray.

After the transaction was completed, Mastro went back to his car and showed the card to his close friend, Rob Lifson, who was Mastro's financial backer for the card deal. Mastro offered one of the T206 Wagner cards from his personal collection to Lifson, claiming that he could sell it for $30,000 and make a quick $5,000 profit. Lifson was skeptical, but he took his friend's word and accepted the offer. Within a week, he sold the card to a New Jersey businessman named Barry Halper for $30,000. Halper, a former limited partner of the New York Yankees with George Steinbrenner in the 1970s and a renowned sports memorabilia collector, sold the card and 200 other baseball memorabilia items in 1998 to Major League Baseball for over $5,000,000. Mastro sold his card in 1987 to Jim Copeland, a San Luis Obispo, California sporting-goods chain owner, for $110,000. With that transaction, there was a sudden renewed interest in baseball card collecting. As Lifson commented, the Copeland deal revitalized the industry and "created an incentive to sell these great cards."