The Card

Title: The Card: Collectors, Con Men, And the True Story of History's Most Desired Baseball Card

Authors: Michael O'Keefe & Teri Thompson

Pages: 272

Genre: Non-Fiction

Grade: A-

Synopsis: The Card, also known as the Gretzky T206 Honus Wagner is worth millions today.  This book tracks the card from its printing in about 1909 through its mysterious history up into the 2000s.  Only a few dozen T206 Wagners are known to exist and most of them show the marks of their history with creases, stains, tears and other imperfections that a century can wreak on a piece of cardboard. Only the Gretzky T206 Honus Wagner card appears to have defied the test of time, with its crisp edges, vivid colors and stiff cardboard, so named because at one point even Wayne Gretzky owned the card for a period of time. The card was first discovered in the late 1980's and through a series of sells and purchases, its value skyrocketed from a few thousand dollars to a couple million dollars.  Intertwined throughout the story of The Card, is a history of baseball card collecting through the ages.

My Review: I didn't know too much about the Gretzky T206 Honus Wagner card before I read this book, beyond that it existed as my experience with card collecting only spanned a few packs during a couple years when I was 8 and 9 (Although I do have a complete Topps set of the 1990 Cincinnati Reds World Champions! But, that's all I have...). I love books that take a topic that I never would have considered reading about and make a book out of it that I can't put down.  This is a book that I tried to get at our local library for a couple years (they don't have a copy), before finally buying a cheap lightly used copy on Amazon.com.