Baseball painting of Pittsburgh Pirates Shortstop Honus Wagner's Hands photo
Painting of MLB Baseball player Honus Wagner's hands who was a Shortstop Pittsburgh Pirates. Art is approximately 54” by 68” acrylic on unstretched canvas.
The Pittsburgh Pirates' Honus
Wagner, a dead-ball era baseball player who is widely considered to be one
of the best players of all time. Most
people know him as having the most valuable baseball card. The reason it is so valuable is because it
was recalled in 1909 and all were destroyed except for a few that got into
circulation.
Here is an interesting story about the baseball card from
Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. The
most famous T206 Honus Wagner is the "Gretzky T206 Honus Wagner"
card. The card's odd texture and shape led to speculation that it was altered.
The Gretzky T206 Wagner was first sold by Alan Ray to a baseball memorabilia
collector named Bill Mastro, who sold the card two years later to Jim Copeland
for nearly four times the price he had originally paid. Copeland's sizable
transaction revitalized interest in the sports memorabilia collection market.
In 1991, Copeland sold the card to ice hockey figures Wayne Gretzky and Bruce
McNall for $451,000. Gretzky resold the card four years later to Wal-Mart and
Treat Entertainment for $500,000, for use as the top prize in a promotional
contest.
The next year, a Florida
postal worker won the card and auctioned it at Christie's for $640,000 to
collector Michael Gidwitz. In 2000, the card was sold via Robert Edward
Auctions to card collector Brian Seigel for $1.27 million. In February 2007,
Seigel sold the card privately to an anonymous collector for $2.35 million.
Less than six months later, the card was sold to another anonymous collector
for $2.8 million. In April 2011, that anonymous purchaser was revealed to be
Ken Kendrick, owner of the Arizona Diamondbacks.[3] These transactions have
made the Wagner card the most valuable baseball card in history.
In October 2013, Bill Mastro pleaded guilty to mail fraud in
U.S District Court — and admitted in the process that he had trimmed the Wagner
card to sharply increase its value.
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| close-up photo of Horus Wagner's hand on the bat |
Honus Wagner was an eight time National League batting
champion, with a lifetime batting average of .328. He also led the league five
times in stolen bases, five times in RBIs, eight times in doubles and three
times in triples. He played nearly 2,800 games during his career, with 3,430
hits, 651 doubles, 252 triples and 722 stolen bases. Along with Babe Ruth, Ty
Cobb, Christy Mathewson and Walter Johnson. If you want all his stats here is the link to MLB
site on Honus Wagner
Honus Wagner’s Hall
of Fame Induction Speech June 12, 1939. Cooperstown , NY Pittsburgh . (crowd laughs) Walking and
running, or hitchhiking a ride on a buggy, them days we had no automobile. I
certainly am pleased to be here in Cooperstown
today, and this is just a wonderful little city, or town, or village or whaever
we’d call it. It puts me in mind of Sleepy Hollow. (crowd laughs) However I
want to thank you for being able to come here today.” Honus Wagner was one of the first five
inducted into the Baseball
Hall of Fame in 1936.
