Earlier this year I was on a quest to acquire a relic card of one of the hobby’s biggest names: Honus Wagner. During my search I found a relic of Wagner at a fairly decent price, but it maybe because the card was in a Beckett Grading slab, and was stuck with an 8.5 label.

A lot of graded card collectors see 8.5 on a modern card and run away. The card obviously isn’t mint, leaving it in a state of uncertainty for collectors who are real sticklers on condition.

I’m OK with 8.5 sometimes. It just depends.

I digress. While the grade may have turned people away in this case, I saw this as an opportunity to swoop up a card that would satisfy my particular collecting goal at the moment. So I bought it for less than the price of two retail blasters.

The card arrived and it has been sitting in a box for months as I sort out stuff in my life.

Alas here I am, card in hand thinking about the acquisition and how the card fits into my collection. But then it hit me. It doesn’t fit. I mean physically.

Relic cards do not belong in slabs. Period.

I know I am not the only collector who  has received a relic card of a legend and instantly touched the piece of material, whether it be part of a jersey, pants or bat.

Honus shall be no different.

This entry was posted on July 30, 2016 at 7:19 am and is filed under Hall of Famers, Newspaperman with tags baseball, baseball cards, Beckett Grading, game-used, Honus Wagner, Topps. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.