LAGUNA NIGUEL : Collector Flips Over Rare Card of Wagner

Though debate probably will never end over who is the greatest baseball player of all time, there is far less doubt among collectors about which baseball card is the most coveted: the 1910 version depicting Honus Wagner, the turn-of-the-century shortstop who was one of the first five players inducted into the Hall of Fame.

Only 40 of the Wagner cards are left, and Sports Cards Plus in Laguna Niguel recently got hold of one.

“This is the card,” said shop owner David Kohler, 33, who flew to the East Coast two weeks ago to purchase what he refers to as the Holy Grail of the baseball card collector. The price for such a card is roughly $75,000, Kohler said, “but that’s negotiable.”

What makes the card so valuable is that had only limited circulation. The first baseball cards were given away with purchases of tobacco--bubble gum came much later. Wagner, who was very health conscious, objected to having his image associated with smoking and cigarettes.

The player requested that his card be pulled from distribution, meaning that far fewer Wagners were circulated than those portraying other early baseball greats.

When Kohler, who had been seeking a Wagner card for 13 years, discovered one listed for sale in a national magazine for collectors, he snapped it up. He does not intend to keep it for his own collection, though. He says he will resell it “within six months, if not sooner. . . . It’s going to go fast.”

Not everything in the shop, however, is for sale. One such item is a framed photograph of Babe Ruth that hangs in Kohler’s office. Signed by the Sultan of Swat, it reads, “To Dave.”

Though the original recipient was a different Dave, Kohler cherishes the photo just the same. “I always told everybody if they ever found anything with my name, that I’d buy it,” he said. “And somebody found it.”