T206 'jumbo' Honus Wagner card achieves world record $3.1m

A 'jumbo' sized PSA EX 5 (MC)-graded T206 Honus Wagner baseball card sold for a world record $3.1m at Goldin Auctions on October 2.

It edged out its previous record sale price of $2.1m (set in 2013) by 47.6%. It's also the first trading card of any kind to sell for over $3m.  

Honus Wagner card
The Honus Wagner card is one of three graded PSA 5

The card is known in the game as the "Jumbo Wagner" for its unusually large margins, which are highly prized by collectors.

The Wagner card is famously the rarest in the T206 series. Only 200 were ever printed before Wagner apparently objected to the use of his image.

Of these, just 43 are known to survive, of which only three are graded PSA 5 - the highest grading achieved.  

Goldin explained its significance in the hobby during the run-up to the sale: "Even the uninitiated will speak in awe about the Mona Lisa, the barely literate recognize that the Brasher Doubloon was once intended to be spent, and the most tone-deaf soul on earth understands the meaning of the Stradivarius.

"It's in this vein of subliminal knowledge that virtually everyone in America - from soccer mom to sophisticate, from pedestrian to patrician - instantly equates the name 'Honus Wagner' with the concept of the baseball card hobby's summum bonum - 'highest good.'"

The Jumbo Wagner wasn't the only record breaker in the sale.

A Logoman LeBron James rookie card, featuring his signature and a patch from one of his jerseys, realised $318,500.

That's the highest price ever paid for a signed trading card.

You can take a look at all our sports memorabilia for sale here.

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