Business & Tech
Sunset Hills Man Sells Baseball Card for $1.2 Million
Bill Goodwin, a Sunset Hills collectibles dealer, sold the Honus Wagner baseball card to a New Jersey man.
Sunset Hills resident Bill Goodwin, the owner of Goodwin & Co., an online sports memorabilia auction company, sold a 1900s’ baseball card for $1.2 million last Friday, according to a St. Louis Post-Dispatch article.
The baseball card bears the portrait of John Peter Wagner, also known as Honus Wagner, who was a Pittsburgh Pirates shortstop and one of the first players to be inducted into the baseball hall of fame, according to his biographical website.
According to the Goodwin & Co.’s website, the card is one of only 42 examples graded by Sportscard Guaranty Corporation and the Professional Sports Authenticator, making it one of the “rarest and most magnificent” of its kind.
"You know you always want to get a little more, but we did well,” Goodwin said in a Post Dispatch article. “The final sale price is about $300,000 more than that of the last Wagner."
About 200 of the cards were in circulation between 1909 and 1911. The cards came in cigarette packs from the American Tobacco Co., according to the Post Dispatch’s article. Honus Wagner’s website states the cards were discontinued because Wagner, a nonsmoker, was opposed to being included in the cards and “did not want to set a bad example for children.”
The Post Dispatch reports the buyer of the card, a New Jersey man, has not yet decided if he wants to be identified.