Baseball Cards

Brian and Lorrie Seigel were still jumping for joy over snaring the ultimate baseball card in an Internet auction when their 13-year-old daughter tapped her mother on the shoulder. "If Dad can spend $1 million on a baseball card, why can't I have a horse?" Jessica asked. Welcome to this episode of Lifestyles of the Rich and Newly Famous, starring the Seigels. Brian Seigel stepped into the spotlight Tuesday as the proud owner of what he called "the Mona Lisa of baseball cards."

A baseball card depicting Pittsburgh Pirate shortstop Honus Wagner, issued in 1909, fetched $1.1 million on the eBay online auction house over the weekend. The unidentified buyer will be presented with the card during a press conference today at Edison Field. EBay officials would only confirm that the buyer is not a celebrity or public figure, but rather an "avid sports memorabilia collector."

In the 1960s, kids traded baseball cards all summer and took transistor radios to school to listen to the World Series in the fall, while Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris were trying to beat Babe Ruth's home run record. HBO's "When It Was a Game III," which airs tonight, captures many of those moments as it examines the last decade of innocence of America's favorite pastime.

What: Worthguide.com Worthguide.com provides pricing information on thousands of items traded in online auctions, among them sports memorabilia and baseball cards. This is a great site to visit if you're wondering how much those old cards in the attic are worth. Or to find out which rookie cards you should purchase. Simply type in the address and click on sports memorabilia. You'll find volume and sales numbers for all the hottest cards. Besides the obvious--such as Ken Griffey Jr.

Eighty-three thousand dollars(!) for an Andy Pafko baseball card. A piece of cardboard that was child's play. Pitch them: closest to the wall wins. Flip them heads or tails; call it odds or evens. Stick them in the spokes of your bike with a clothespin and hear the whir as you ride along. You wouldn't put Topps 1952, card No. 1 in your spokes now, would you? How can this be? "I can't see it," said Sy Berger, the man who put players and cards together for Topps for a half-century.

A 1910 Honus Wagner baseball card, considered the Holy Grail of baseball collectibles, sold at auction Saturday for $640,500 and left its lucky ex-owner looking forward to early retirement. "This is the pinnacle of my life, so far," said the seller, Patricia Gibbs, 41, who won custody of the card in February as part of a national contest held by Wal-Mart. The winning bidder was not identified by officials at Christie's auction house.

The 17th National Sports Collectors Convention, like a prominent card manufacturer, is looking to the past to keep moving forward. The convention, which starts today, returns to the Anaheim Convention Center for the first time since 1991, when the industry was thriving. Despite long lines and a single entrance that left many frustrated, the event drew an estimated 100,000, which is the record for the convention.