Why Keith Olbermann Is Auctioning a “Holy Grail” Baseball Card That He Was Using as a Paperweight (Exclusive)

For years, Keith Olbermann, the former ESPN SportsCenter and MSNBC Countdown anchor, was using one of the holy grails of baseball cards … as a paperweight.

Now, the TV veteran tells The Hollywood Reporter that the card in question has been authenticated and slabbed by CGC, and will be going up for auction later this summer at Love of the Game Auctions, after making its public debut at Fanatics Fest in New York next week, alongside rare Wayne Gretzky and Mickey Mantle cards.

The card in question is a T206 Honus Wagner card. Specifically, it was a card known as the”die-cut Wagner,” which disappeared in the mid-1990s, only to find its way into Olbermann’s vast card collection in one of the more bizarre stories of rare collectors items.

“You’ve heard of the phrase an abundance of caution. This is what happens when you have too much of an abundance of caution,” Olbermann says. “I’m the guy who had a Mona Lisa sitting in the closet, or in this case in the office, literally was was in the lucite holder as a paperweight, sometimes holding down stacks of 1995 baseball spring training programs, and this, my stupidity, I think, adds to the story just a little bit.”

So, what happened? Back in the late 1990s Olbermann read an article about someone who restores baseball cards. He sent him a “small project,” and he did such a good job that the idea of a bigger job came up.