DEAL OR NO DEAL: BONUS INTERVIEWS

by Peter Keating

[Ed.'s Note: The T-206 Honus Wagner baseball card is widely regarded as one of the most valuable pieces of sports memorabilia on the market today. In the latest issue of The Mag, senior writer Peter Keating tells us about two Ohio men who may be in possession of a T-206 but refuse to leave it with the Professional Sports Authenticator service. Unfortunately, this means they could be sitting on a fortune they can't actually cash in on. Below are a few excerpts from interviews Peter conducted with the card owners, an appraiser and the president of the PSA.]

JOHN COBB: CARD OWNER

PK: Tell me a little bit about your background.

JC: Okay, well, I live in Loveland, Ohio. I was born June 27, 1952, and actually, my father, he owned a garbage route, that's how I got interested in a lot of things. And I was surprised [at what] people throw away, what was always useful, so I just kinda rummaged through this and that.

I played a lot of music. I played with a lot of good groups in Cincinnati. I played keyboards, with Bootsy Collins, Jimi Hendrix at one time. I played with a lot of different groups, sitting in with them all the time.

PK: Tracing your interest in collecting back to your dad's days working a garbage route, you said you were amazed at what people threw out.

JC: Yes, it was just like somebody in a house like that, [would have a] washer and dryer sitting out, this and that, sitting out whatever [they] discarded. That might be worth some money. [so I would] just go ahead and just grab it. I just put it to the side, see what it's worth. Back in the day right there, that's what I did for a living.

PK: From what I understand, you encountered this Honus Wagner card at an estate sale.

JC: [A] guy who used to work for the gentleman [who died], he told me about the card, … he brought it over to the house, and I said, "How much do you want for this card?" He said, "$2500." I said, "Man, $2500," so I dug in my pockets and I came up with $1800.

PK: Now, let's stop there for a second. At that point, did you know who Honus Wagner was?

JC: No sir, no sir, I didn't.

PK: And then an investor looked at it?

JC: He said, "I'll make you an offer," he said, "10." I'm thinking, oh my gosh, ten dollars, what? And I said, "I don't know," and he said, "I'll give you ten grand for it." I said "Ten grand, $10,000?" He said, "Yeah," and I'm thinking, I can triple my money, so I said, "Can I think about this for a little bit?" … I said, "Look, I gotta find out more about this card" … That's when I started researching.

PK: It's hard to know how much a difference a million dollars would make in anybody's life. But when I talk to you, I hear you saying that right now, proving yourself right, or at least getting a hearing on the facts you've collected, is at least as important to you now as the money is.

JC: The money is least important … My hair is probably turning gray right now, it just takes a lot out of you … You have to believe in what you're fighting for to make it there … We're trying to prove everything that possibly could be true about the card and put that in front of their face … If they take the time, still saying it's been glued together, it's been this, it's been doctored here, and come with facts, then I'll be more apt to believe them. But if they can't come with no facts, then it just don't make no sense.

RAY EDWARDS: CARD OWNER

PK: Tell me a little about yourself.

RE: Well, I'm a Cincinnati native. I run rainbowsgold.com, I've been with my wife over 23 years and we have two lovely children. [John] is my cousin through marriage, my wife's first cousin.

PK: How did you first hear about this baseball card he had?

RE: He was collecting a lot of things: comic books, toys, baseball cards, anything. And one day I was at his apartment, and we were sitting there watching the David Copperfield show.

PK: This is the famous act where it looked like David Copperfield was tearing up this extremely valuable baseball card owned by Wayne Gretzky?

RE: Exactly—and John looked at me and said, "I got that card." He left the room, came back and put it in my hand. I looked at it—I didn't know anything about T-206's, and I'm used to the standard cards, the baseball cards they have today—and I'm like, "Aw, that don't look like a baseball card! What is this?"

PK: How did you come to learn more about it?

RE: Well, in 2002, John brought the card up again. He knew that I knew how to work the Internet, and he [asked,] "Can you sell this card on eBay for me?" And before I actually put it on eBay, I did research, because I had to put [on] the description and the history of the card.

PK: Tell me the results from the first round of your attempts to get this authenticated.

RE: Well, the thing was that when I contacted PSA, they said, "Send it out to us." I said, "Hold on, hold on, wait a minute, this is a Honus Wagner, this is a rare card. Things got lost in the mail. I said, "No, we can't send this &helllip; Can we come out?" They said, "You can come out, but you would have to wait out in the lobby, and then we have to grade it." I said, "No, I would like to be present, because someone could scratch it, do this, do that, anything could happen to the card." They said, "That's not our policy." And so that's when it was like, okay this is not going to take place then.

PK: Let's focus on that, because I think to a lot of people, it's just going to seem incredible. This is six years that you and Mr. Cobb on one side and PSA and grading companies on the other side have been at loggerheads.

RE: We're not afraid to step in front of any grading company. I think the grading companies are afraid of us with all the scientific facts that we have.

PK: There are a couple of questions about your version of the card, there's the question of the raised "P," about the black outline. You're saying if there are errors on the card, that's actually more evidence that it's real, because if it's that old, nobody would have been counterfeiting these cards back in the 1920's or 19-teens when the card was printed.

RE: Yes, it is. I mean, they came out with different variations all the time in the T-206 series, so why couldn't the Honus Wagner have an error? I noticed the "P" and the "I" when I [looked] at the other Honus Wagners. I noticed it didn't have an outline. So we're not trying to hide anything. What I presented in my description in the card is that it's an error.

PK: It sounds like the industry as a whole has had a reaction against this card. Do you feel like that's true?

RE: Yes, I feel that that they made a premature judgment on something that they never actually touched. They're only going by computer image. And when you throw away, when you toss out scientific facts, I mean science is actually what keeps us knowing that the earth revolves around the sun … But when it comes to the Honus Wagner, then the hobbyists say, "Well, this is a hobby, and we're not going to go with your scientific facts."

PK: What does it feel like to be so close but so far away? Here's this card, it could be worth who knows how much, but for years and years, you haven't been able to convert that small card into that huge value that it might be worth to you, your family, your friends.

RE: It's frustrating. It's like having a winning lottery ticket and can't cash it. But I think there's light at the end of the tunnel. I think that the facts are out there and [in] the public arena. Someone will step up … Like I said, I challenged PSA … I want to sit down … I don't want you to look at the card and say it is a fake, and you just shut the door. I want you to say if it's a fake, then prove that it is a fake. If it is a reprint, what company reprinted? … Let's get this thing going.

JOE ORLANDO: PRESIDENT,
PROFESSIONAL SPORTS AUTHENTICATOR

PK: We're sitting here in your office surrounded by memorabilia. Tell me when did you start collecting?

JO: Like most young boys, I started collecting probably at the age of 5. I can remember going to a stamp, coin and baseball card shop at a mall right next door to, of course, our favorite pizza place, and my parents buying me a couple of baseball cards and getting me started. As a collector, it's kind of interesting for me now, I'm running the company I used to be a customer of.

PK: PSA are the professionals in this business. Why is baseball card collecting, of all things, something that needs professionalizing?

JO: For a couple of reasons. First of all, let's rewind the clock back to the pre-grading era. To, let's say, the 1980s. A typical scenario would be let's say I own a baseball card shop and you were a customer. You would walk into my store and have interest in one of the baseball cards in my display case. Well, the problem there was the person who was authenticating the item and grading the item, saying whether or not it was mint and near mint condition is also the person who has a financial interest in that item. So there was a conflict of interest in the sale of sports memorabilia &helllip; And there was no standard, no uniformity. The other main reason … for a service like PSA is that there are counterfeits out there.

PK: Where does PSA get its revenues from? Does PSA make more money or have any financial interest in the grading of a particular piece of memorabilia?

JO: No, and that's what gives people that peace of mind is that when we grade, for example, let's say we grade a Mickey Mantle Rookie Card and someone pays us, let's just say $50.00 to grade that card. That's the end of the line … Once that item goes out the door, there's no financial interest on PSA's part.

PK: Just to be clear, there's no contingencies in appraisals, in other words, you won't take a percentage take of what an item sells for?

JO: No, absolutely not.

PK: And you're also not involved in running auctions yourself?

JO: No, absolutely not.

PK: Let me ask you what it's like to be the judge who renders a verdict. You're telling these people whether their dreams are real or not.

JO: It's tough because I've been there. I was a collector growing up, and I've had instances where I thought I had something and it turned out it was a counterfeit. And it's devastating. It's not just the financial aspect. There's an emotional aspect to it, especially if it was a gift from someone meaningful. It is probably the hardest part of our job when we go to a trading convention, if we're dealing with a customer and we have to deliver that bad news.

PK: Now, looking at the story of John Cobb and Ray Edwards, you said you could assure us that that card was not real. Tell me why.

JO: Well, it's one of those stories that will seemingly never die, I guess … I have seen high resolution or at least fairly high resolution scans of the card. And there are several problems that immediately come to mind when you see the card at first glance. Any credible card expert [would] know that there are so many red flags with that card.

PK: Well let's go through a few.

JO: Number one, and the thing that most people talk about with this card, is the fact at the bottom of the card where the name and team is … You can see that the lettering, the sizing of the lettering at the bottom of the card is simply not consistent with any known authentic Honus Wager Card in existence … Number two … It's a square-looking card, it doesn't look worn in any way. However, along the edges of the card you see a lot of browning and discoloration. It looks like manufactured aging … Number three, as far as a glaring, an obvious problem with the card is simply the picture and the print registration, the color, the look of the card. If you are familiar with what, again, not just T-206 Honus Wagner's look like but T-206 Cards period. Just the registration in the photo, the color, the richness, the photo on the surface is completely washed out.

PK: Mr. Edwards brings up the fact that misprints and errors are fairly common in old series, including this series, and that this card may be a misprint of a T-206 Wagner.

JO: That's an interesting theory. I'll just leave it at that. Of course, the reality is anything is possible, but experts have to determine the authenticity of a card based on what they do know, not on theories. And what experts do know is that there are no known Honus Wagners that have that particular defect or printing error.

PK: Is authenticating something you get a feel for over time? I mean I know with artists and forgeries, a lot of times people look at a painting and say they just have a feeling. It may not always be correct, but is it something you develop reflexes for over a period of time?

JO: There's a combination there. As they say, there's part science, part art form. So part of it is the experience. There's no question about that. Over time you need to touch, and feel, and see the items … But there's another thing, another aspect, to being an expert that I don't think people realize. In a way, it's almost like a gift. There are people that just have a knack for it. I could go out and get professional hitting lessons three times a day for the next year. It doesn't mean I'm going to out-hit A-Rod in a game. It's a combination of that innate ability, the experience, and again it's the balance between science and the art form, for sure.

PK: Are you one of those people who has the innate eye?

JO: I do. I'm not one of the people who works full time doing this. I have to, in my position at PSA, I have to sort of be a generalist. I have to have expertise in cards, in autographs, in game-used bats and everything that we offer. I'm not the person who sits down in the room and grades cards all day. But, yeah … Whether that's a curse or not, I'm not sure. But I have that eye.

BOB CONNELLY: APPRAISER

PK: Tell us about your business.

BC: Well, I sold my first chair when I was 10 years old, took it off the city dump. My high school counselor told me I had to be an engineer because I was good at math and science, and I graduated as a mechanical engineer, put my way through school by buying and selling antiques. I worked about six weeks as a mechanical engineer and said, "This isn't for me." I've been selling antiques either at auctions or appraising them fulltime since 1964 … I do a lot of high profile divorce cases. I do probably 20 to 25 appraisals involving the Baseball Hall of Fame in any given year.

PK: Mr. Edwards and Mr. Cobb brought you a card for appraisal, but it wasn't just any card, right?

BC: They told me that it was the Honus Wagner card, and I sort of yawned and said, "Yeah, all right," because I've seen hundreds of them, and they've all been reproductions. But when I looked at that card and the documentation that went with it, I believed it is an original, T-206 Honus Wagner baseball card.

PK: Can you tell us what specifically made you believe in the authenticity of this specimen?

BC: The printing on it, for one thing. The "P" is unlike anything I've seen before—the registration is right, but there's actually a color that's missing. And if somebody was going to reproduce a card like that, they would make it exactly right. I believe it is an error card.

PK: So you're saying that items that other people are saying are imperfections or mistakes are actually evidence that this card is real.

BC: I believe so.

PK: There are other experts who say the card is obviously a fake. Counterfeiters do have amazing techniques, even of splitting the front of a card from the back and pasting the halves on separated fake items.

BC: All right, that is very expensive. And it's documented the first time [Cobb and Edwards] had the card is almost 20 years ago, and the costs of doing that 20 years ago would have been more than the card was worth. The card has been looked at, and paper experts said it is one piece. It is not been a split card. The printing was done on a press that has not been used after 1922 … The paper [was] made before 1920. So if this card is not an original Piedmont tobacco card … why would it have been counterfeited back then?

PK: What was the result of your appraisal?

BC: I appraised the card at that time for about $850,000. Today, I believe the card is closer to a million and a half.

PK: But the auction you set up did not go as planned. Tell me why.

BC: Well, it was put up and it was eBay live, and Ray got into an Internet argument with a bunch of people, and it became a racial issue, and all of a sudden, eBay said, "We don't want to go there" … I had two people who were willing to open the bidding at $300,000 until eBay pulled it off, and both people said, "If eBay pulled it off, it's not real," [but] that's not the reason it was pulled off … They got exceptionally nasty … Now, if Ray and John had been two blue-eyed boys with blonde hair from Kansas, this never would have happened."

PK: Can somebody who doesn't fit the almost stereotypical profile of the card collector break into this industry and be taken seriously?

BC: I think if you're an African-American, you start out with two and a half strikes against you.

PK: What's the status of the card today?

BC: They have left the marketing of the card up to me … I've shown the card to several people, and they all scratch their heads and say, "I'll think about it."

PK: Do you have any hope or projected date for when you will actually be able to sell it?

BC: I'd like to do it before I'm dead.

Print Article . Email Article. Subscribe to The Magazine