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Restored 1909-11 T206 Honus Wagner Sold for 1.98 Million Dollars

Would YOU Restore Baseball Card?

May 23, 2025

A "restored" 1909-11 T206 Honus Wagner card has been sold for 1.98 MILLION dollars! Would YOU restore a baseball card?

The T206 Honus Wager card is arguably the most famous baseball card in the world. From the iconic 1909-11 T206 set, this Holy Grail for collectors usually commands a seven-figure sum. For the first time since September of 2023, a completed auction for a Wagner took place a few weeks ago. Almost two years have gone by until one of the coveted gems has found a new owner. There is something unique about this Wagner, though,

This particular sale was for a "restored" card. What does that mean? If you're not familiar with grading, professional companies such as PSA will review a cards and give it a "grade" using a scale of 1 to 10 with 10 being Gem Mint perfect. However, if card has been altered in anyway, a company cannot properly assign a number grade and will deem the card as "authentic" or "altered."

Our friends a Sports Collectors Daily shared the story about this Wagner card being sold a Mile High and tracked down what the card looked like BEFORE and AFTER being restored. Apparently, the front of the card was restored to remove creases.

Would YOU restore a baseball card?

Sure, the front of the card does look better, but it is often highly, and we mean HIGHLY frowned upon in the hobby to restore a card. That is weird, though, right? When you buy a home, you want to fix it up to your liking. If you have a scratch on your car, you get it buffed out and looking spiffy. Famous paintings even get restored! Baseball cards - not so much. While we recommend to NOT restore your cards and always safely store your collection, there is no real right or wrong answer; you own the card! At one point, the hobby frowned on having athletes sign rookie cards. Now, you dream of owning a signed 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle rookie card. Maybe 20 years from now, we'll all be wondering why we didn't restore any of our cards.

Honus Wagner

Do you have any T206 cards you're interested in selling? We are always buying! We proudly discovered and purchased 22 RARE Hindu-back T206 cards from Georgia. Ty Cobb and Cy Young star in this T206 collection from Boston. The retail stores are focused on selling modern products and simply don't have the time or the knowledge to carefully evaluate vintage collections. This is where we are happy to help you! We have purchased thousands upon thousands of collections and bought and sold over 50 MILLION dollars in cards. Here is how you can reach out for a FREE appraisal:

WE ARE ALWAYS BUYING

Just Collect is always buying vintage sports and non-sports cards from 1879 to 1979 as well as select modern cards. If you have a collection that you are considering selling, contact us today to discuss or get our industry-leading purchase offer. If you have a collection that you want appraised, please contact us and we would be happy to discuss your collection and help you understand the real cash value of your collection in the current marketplace. Check out the Just Collect Buy List.

We always offer a FREE APPRAISAL for your collection here at the Just Collect site. Just click here:

We offer may ways to evaluate your cards other than or using our website, too.

Travel to Us

If you can make the trip here like the son from my hometown did for this collection- we can make a deal at the office. We once met a father-son duo that drove eight hours from Virginia to meet us to sell a Michael Jordan rookie card stored in Tupperware since 1986 - great read here.

Come to convention

We keep a LIST of card shows we'll be attending. Come stop by the Just Collect table and chat.

Meet in-person

If you have a valuable collection and want us to come to you, we'll hop on the next plane out.

Meet in New York City

If you're near New York City and would like to meet in a public place, our owner, Leighton, would be happy to meet you; read all the information here.

SHIP your collection

If you choose to mail your cards for an appraisal, we will evaluate your cards for FREE still. If you choose not to sell the cards, we'll ship them back shipping fees paid by us! We can offer our FedEx account with 2-day shipping, fully insured, all covered by us. Simply contact the office to set up this option.

OUR BUYING PHILOSOPHY

We've run into a wide range of people and collections over the last 25 years. Although Just Collect is known for buying vintage sports cards and especially vintage baseball cards, we are also extremely interested in buying non-sports cards, too!

Every collection and every collector is different and we treat EVERY collection with the respect and attention that we show for our own collections. We understand that many have put their heart and souls into building their collections. So when you're ready to sell, we understand the feelings that you're going through and will work with you to help you reach a decision that is a WIN/WIN, because if you're not happy, we're not happy.