WOW...

[RoyalBoyle78]

I wish I had this card..

http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/news?slug=ap-baseballcard-record

[mjb2124]

Re: WOW...

Ahhh, the most famous baseball card ever produced - Honus Wagner. There are only a handful in existence.

Reason being is that the card was included in a pack of cigarettes. Wagner was against smoking and told the company to stop producing his card with cigarettes. They stopped making the card.

EDIT - I didn't even read the story to see that the story already outlined everything I just stated. D'oh....

[ExtremeGamer]

Re: WOW...

Ahhh, the most famous baseball card ever produced - Honus Wagner. There are only a handful in existence.

Reason being is that the card was included in a pack of cigarettes. Wagner was against smoking and told the company to stop producing his card with cigarettes. They stopped making the card.

EDIT - I didn't even read the story to see that the story already outlined everything I just stated. D'oh....

LOL, I was going to post the same thing from just the story's title. Known that story forever.

[wang_chi7]

Re: WOW...

Ahhh, the most famous baseball card ever produced - Honus Wagner. There are only a handful in existence.

Reason being is that the card was included in a pack of cigarettes. Wagner was against smoking and told the company to stop producing his card with cigarettes. They stopped making the card.

EDIT - I didn't even read the story to see that the story already outlined everything I just stated. D'oh....

I was going to write the same thing. But add that its possibly only an urban legend that he said that. Its not really known, but makes at least some sense that its a legend. How many people in that time knew the hazards of smoking anyways? Its a great story nonetheless, so its worth retelling.

Here is an article from Wikipedia (I know its a terrible source but I've heard the same thing from better sources before but this is easier to look up and this article at least has references sited):

"It is estimated that between 50 and 200 of the Wagner cards were ever distributed to the public,[1][4] and fewer still have survived to the present day. Several theories exist as to why the card is so rare. One theory is that the printing plate used to create Wagner's card broke early on in the production process, but Wagner was a major star at the time and new plates would have almost certainly have been created. Another theory is that there was a copyright dispute between the American Tobacco Company and the artist who created the Wagner lithograph.[5]

The most commonly accepted theory is that the card was pulled from production because Wagner himself objected to the production of the card, but his motivation is unclear. Reports at the time indicated that Wagner did not wish to associate himself with cigarettes,[6] possibly because he did not want to encourage children to smoke.[3] However, some collectors and historians have pointed out that Wagner, a user of chewing tobacco, allowed his image to appear on cigar boxes and other tobacco-related products prior to 1909 and objected to the card simply because he wanted more financial compensation for the use of his image.[3][7]"

[dce1228]

Re: WOW...

I once had a Honus Wagner rookie card... but I ate it.