PITTSBURGH -- The baseball card equivalent of the Hope Diamond is being auctioned on the Internet.

The online auction house eBay began accepting bids Wednesday on a near-mint condition card depicting Hall of Fame shortstop Honus Wagner of the Pittsburgh Pirates. Bidding on the card, issued in 1909 by the American Tobacco Company, will continue through July 15.

Two bids were received Wednesday night, the highest for $550,000, said Kristen Sewell, a spokeswoman for eBay.

Like other collectibles, the card's price is driven by its rarity and condition -- it is the finest specimen of about 50 Wagner cards known to exist from the 1909 set. But this card's value is bolstered by an almost harmonic convergence of legend, celebrity ownership and circumstance.

"This card represents the hobby's entree into the kind of prices that fine art gets. There aren't too many other cards that have the kind of pedigree this card has," said T.S. O'Connell, managing editor of Sports Collectors Digest.

Legend has it that Wagner ordered American Tobacco to pull the card from circulation because he didn't want his likeness used to sell tobacco, for fear it would influence children.

That legend has been challenged, with some pointing to a 1948 Leaf bubble gum card that shows Wagner, by then a coach for the Pirates, stuffing a wad of chewing tobacco in his mouth.

But in this case, the legend is true, says Robert Lifson, president of Robert Edward Auctions of Watchung, N.J., which is offering the card through eBay. He said he has seen newspaper articles dating to 1912 that say Wagner did not want the cards released.

"It's the king of all baseball cards, really a legendary collecting icon," Lifson said. "This legend is not something that's just come up. It was the (pre-eminent) baseball card legend 30 years ago, it was the baseball card legend 50 years ago."

Even in 1930, the Wagner card was appraised at $50 by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, while other cards in the rare 523-player set were valued at nickels or dimes, Lifson said.

O'Connell says Wagner's family rejects claims he pulled the card after the tobacco company refused to pay him more money for his likeness.

"I guess if it was my grandfather, I'd dispute it, too," O'Connell said, adding he doesn't think money drove Wagner's decision either.

"Even into the 1950s and 1960s, players didn't get much more than a couple hundred bucks and a toaster," for letting baseball card companies use their likeness, O'Connell said.

Lifson said a 1912 newspaper article says Wagner and other players got $10 each for letting the tobacco company put their picture on its cards.

That year's series of cards, known to collectors at the T206 set, remains the most collected set of baseball cards ever, Lifson said.

The Wagner card made history in 1991, when hockey superstar Wayne Gretzky and Bruce McNall, then owner of the National Hockey League's Los Angeles Kings, bought it for $461,000.

The card was later sold to Wal-Mart, which raffled it off in a national promotion. The winner, Patricia Gibbs, a Florida postal clerk, immediately sold the card so she could afford to pay the taxes she owed for winning it.

Gibbs consigned the card to Christie's of New York City, which sold the card for $640,500 to renowned collector Michael Gidwitz, who has owned it since.

O'Connell and Lifson said publicity about the card's high-profile ownership will likely drive up the price.

Bids above $500,000 must be in increments of $50,000. Bidders must register in advance and wire $100,000 into an escrow account to be qualified.