Not fantasy sports per se...

...But it is a fantasy to someday own (ok, even be in the presence of) the greatest, most famous baseball card ever printed.

Well this just in from Beckett News:

The finest known example of the famed 1909-11 T206 Honus Wagner was once again sold this week, this time for a record-setting $2.8M in a private transaction conducted by SCP Auctions. The card, graded NM-MT 8 by PSA, was at one time owned by Wayne Gretzky in addition to being the grand prize for a national promotion conducted by Wal-Mart.

Prior to this most recent transaction, SCP Auctions had sold the card this past February for $2.35M to another private party and had themselves taken a minority ownership position in the card.

"The T206 Honus Wagner card is an icon, not only in the field of baseball card collecting, but in the larger field of Americana," said David Kohler, president and CEO of SCP Auctions. "We are privileged to have been involved in the sale of this card, not once but twice."

It's estimated that as few as 70 copies of the T206 Wagner exist to this day. To date, 33 copies have been professionally graded (29 by PSA and four by SGC). Of those, 25 copies are graded between Poor 1 and Good 2, six are VG 3, one is EX 5 and, of course, one very newsworthy copy is NM-MT 8.

What they don't mention (because they assume you already know the story) is how the card came to be so rare in the first place. Back in the day of flannel uniforms and tiny leather gloves, cardboard pictures of these new-fangled professional "base-ball" players were sold as premium incentives to get you to purchase a certain brand of cigarettes. Not gum, but cancer sticks. Wow. Can you imagine? Anyway, Honus Wagner of "Pittsburg" was something of an odd duck in 1909: a non-smoker. When he found out his likeness was being used to peddle cigs, he protested. The company stopped printing new ones, and the few that had gotten out became rarities. When you consider that most baseball cards, for which there was no real hobby market until the late 70s, were the first thing mothers and wives took to the town dump, it's no wonder there are only a few of them left. It's a compelling story, as evidenced by the new book just published in May, simply entitled "The Card." If you don't happen to find T-206 Honus Wagner original in an attic or flea market, the book would make a lovely gift for the collectibles enthusiast in your life. Hint, hint. ;-)