T206 Mad Magazine Alfred E. Newman sold for $1293

Robert Edward Auctions (April 29, 2007)

Robert Edward Auctions sold a T206 Mad Magazine Alfred E. Newman for $1293 in their April 2007 auction.

The following was the auction description:

Presented is an absolutely unique hobby treasure and one with a fascinating story and provenance relating to the famous T206 Honus Wagner. In the year 1996 legendary collector Mike Gidwitz bought the "Gretzky-McNall" Wagner for a then-staggering $640,500 at auction. In addition to being known for his world-class baseball collection, Mike Gidwitz is just as well known among his many friends for having a lot of fun with his collecting, and also well known for having the world's largest and greatest collection of original Mad Magazine cover artwork. It was only natural, then, that shortly after buying the Wagner card, a collecting friend of Mike's created a T206 "card" of Alfred E. Newman as a gift to present to him. The card was designed in the style of the famous Wagner card, at a glance, but actually featured a likeness of Mad Magazine's famous, though hapless, icon Alfred E. Newman. Mike enjoyed sharing the card with collectors as a joke and even brought it to the National Convention one year. When he showed the card to Joe Orlando, President of PSA, Joe asked if he could borrow the card for a few minutes. When he gave it back, it was slabbed in a PSA holder, and appropriately graded zero. No one can say PSA doesn't have a sense of humor! (Hey, no grading jokes, please!) This is the lowest grade ever assigned to any card in the entire history of PSA. Mike has been asking us to auction this card for years and we've been putting him off for years, but we promised him we would eventually do it. Now is the time, so here it is! Many people can own a real T206 Wagner, but only one can own the one and only PSA-graded T206 "Alfred E. Newman" Wagner. It isn't really worth anything, but it is a great conversation piece, and an amusing item of hobby lore relating to the legend of the most famous T206 Honus Wagner. $50 is as low as our system allows as a minimum or we'd start it lower.