A coveted T206 Honus Wagner baseball card – often called the Holy Grail or Mona Lisa of sports collectibles – will be sold as part of a huge weekend multi-estate sale planned for Nov. 22-23 by Philip Weiss Auctions.

Nov. 22 will be dedicated mainly to sports memorabilia; Nov. 23 will feature comic collectibles and original comic art. In all, nearly 1,000 lots will change hands.

“This will be our greatest sports sale ever,” Philip Weiss said of the first day of the sale. “The Honus Wagner card, which we expect will bring $500,000-$800,000, comes from the original owner’s family and has never before been offered on the market. It is SGC graded 3, and that’s the only thing keeping it from being worth much more.” A similar card graded SGC 8 sold for $2.8 million last year.

he Nov. 22 session will also feature a collection of original-owner T205 and T206 cards, to include a highly prized Ray Demmitt error card. The Honus Wagner card was issued as part of the T206 series (1909-1911) by the American Tobacco Company. The cards were inserted into packs of cigarettes as a promotion, but Wagner – a non-smoker – refused to allow production of his own card to continue.

As a result, only around 200 Honus Wagner cards were ever distributed to the public. In 1933, the card got its first assigned value ($50) in Jefferson Burdick’s The American Card Catalog, making it the most expensive baseball card in the world at the time. The card that sold for $2.8 million was once owned by hockey great Wayne Gretzky, who paid $451,000 for it in 1991. He sold it for $1.2 million.

Two transactions later, the card soared to $2.8 million – still a record for any sports card. The card has become so famous that in an episode of the television series Prison Break, a thief gets five years for stealing a Honus Wagner T206 card (it was considered a felony, because of the card’s worth). Honus Wagner is one of the greatest ballplayers of all time, playing 21 seasons, mostly with Pittsburgh.

The start time for both auction days is 10 a.m. Previews will be held all day Friday, Nov. 21, and in the morning on the date of sale, starting at 8 a.m. A sizable crowd is expected at Philip Weiss Auctions’ showroom, located at #1 Neil Court in Oceanside, N.Y. Online bidding will be facilitated by eBay Live Auctions and LiveAuctioneers.com. Phone, e-mail and absentee bids will also be accepted.

Philip Weiss Auctions is always accepting quality consignments for future sales. To consign an item, estate or collection, you may call them directly, at (516) 594-0731, or you can e-mail them at phil@prwauctions.com. To learn more about the firm and its calendar of upcoming sales, and to view images of some lots to be offered in the Nov. 22 and Nov. 23 sales, click on www.prwauctions.com

Posted: 10|7|08 at 10:45 am. Filed under: US News.