Most valuable card
 

T206 Honus Wagner PSA 8 or 52 topps mantle PSA 10?

PSA 10 52 Topps Mantle

1990 Fleer Jose Uribe is closing fast. :rolleyes:

If a true PSA 8 was ever found, it would crush the PSA 10 Mantle by a factor of 3.

+1

A Wagner PSA 5 sold for over $3,000,000. I can't imagine what an 8 would bring.

Honestly not sure
 

I wouldn't bet too much on this because i am honestly not sure. if the wagner didn't have its sketchy past i'd bet on that, but it does, so I'm not sure in all honesty.

This is where I am at as well. So much of this also depends on whether there are 2 interested parties who have to have the card.

Well, there are 2 that have to want the Wags 8 for all that money KNOWING it's trimmed. It wouldn't be for me but many collectors wouldn't care because PSA said it's not trimmed. :confused:

If it wasn't trimmed the Wags in an 8 would blow away a Mantle in a 10, imo.

The Wagner. There are 3 Mantles, so if one were to come up for sale, you have 2 deep pockets that wouldn't be bidding. There is only 1 PSA 8 Wagner.

There are 0 PSA 8 Wagner's, realistically speaking, and that could be (maybe not) a problem.
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Why did one of the big submitters get it into a PSA 10 slab?;):D:D:D

What are you talking about? Did you mean to say what "if"? Or are you speaking of a Mantle or what?

It was a joke about the Wagner because of you saying there is no PSA 8.

I'm not so sure the Wagner being trimmed makes much of a difference. Plus the card has a history, Gretzky used to own it. If another psa 8 is discovered and they were both sold I would not be surprised if the new one went for less, and they both sold for less than a psa 10 52 mantle.

IMHO, the most valuable card, should it come out for sale, would be the best example of the 1914 Baltimore News Ruth (VG+, I believe), quite possibly contested closely by a PSA 10 '52 Topps Mantle. 8 figures would not surprise me for either. Each has become analogous to the early '60's Ferrari road/race models in our collectible field.

Regards,

Larry

Wagz

But wait ... I thought I had heard that all three PSA 10 Mantles had been hand cut from those uncut sheets.

Doesn't that make them "trimmed" too?

I mean the grade on them is just as bogus because they were not factory cut and issued cards.

Why the question marks and discrimination on the Wagner and not the Mantles? All 4 have been doctored in one way or the other.

Cheers,
Patrick

What uncut sheets?

I assumed that all three Mantles are from Rosen's find.

my 2 cents
 

Things being what they are I believe the PSA 10 Mantle - MUCH more interest in it lately (higher demand) and I speculate more deep pockets willing to do battle for it.

Pretty incredible the level of detail that PSA claims to invest in determining if a card is trimmed or otherwise altered and yet a card that is supposed to be in some respects the face of the hobby sits in a holder with a numeric grade at the top of the population and not even so much as a qualifier - If I am not mistaken, by their own guidelines the card should have an "A" grade.

Perhaps I heard wrong ... but I was told all three came from when that guy brought in the group of uncut high number sheets at one of those early card shows (back in the 1970s? 1978? in Atlantic city?). I seem to recall even hearing that the three Mantles were cut from the sheet right in front of someone at PSA and then directly handed to them for grading. (If I'm wrong on this - someone please correct me!)

I thought I had pictures somewhere of that sheet ... but all I could readily find in my photo archive was one of the other uncut sheets that walked in the door that day.

Cheers,
Patrick

Do you have a source? Did a specific person tell you this?

So someone brought an uncut 1952 Topps high number sheet with Mantle on it to a convention in the late 1990s or 2000s (or later?) when PSA was grading onsite and cut the sheet up in front of them? I've never heard of this before. Are you sure? This doesn't seem possible or believable...especially considering that I know where the first PSA 10 Mantle came from.

It doesn't mean the story isn't true, but I have never heard of that before either?

Hopefully the poster can dig up some more info on it.

agreed

agreed

as someone who has little to no faith in grading companies as a whole and PSA specifically, even i find it hard to believe they would give a 10 to cards they saw being hand cut from a sheet minutes before.

I thought the three Mantles came from Mr. Mint's find?

I'm sorry to say I do not remember where I heard this. Honestly, I thought it was common knowledge because I picked up years after it happened from some public forum (net54 before it switched format?), and so I didn't make great notes of the source.

The original source though was more a story about how someone came into one of the early shows with these uncut sheets (4 or 5 sheets of 25 cards of all uncut high numbers) and the room went wild. The cutting of the Mantles from the sheet and submitting them for grading was an after thought in the accounts I read.

The original owner still had one sheet with Mantle left on it years later ... and sold it 4(?) years or so back on Ebay. (Given the prices today, it was a great buy!)

I wish I could offer more proof - but I do not appear to have saved the original information.

Cheers,
Patrick

It strikes me as pretty reckless and irresponsible to truck in such unsubstantiated smearing of Fogel's card and the other two 10s, saying— without proof— that all have been doctored and/or cut from sheets.

Here is all I could find; this first information quoted below is from an article on Sports Collector's Daily:

"Fogel’s card, among the earliest graded by PSA, had originated with the famous 1980s Massachusetts find made by Alan “Mr. Mint” Rosen, who purchased hundreds of high-grade 1952 Topps cards –even the original Topps case they were stored in– from a man in Quincy, MA in 1986."

https://www.sportscollectorsdaily.co...psa-10-mantle/

This Forbes article also traces the Fogel specimen's origins to the Rosen Find...

https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidse.../#29c6ebc43a99

From PSA's website:

Fogel-Murphy Specimen. The card came from the fabulous 1952 Topps collection of Mark Murphy. It was then sold by dealer Bill Hughes to Collectors Universe CEO David Hall for $50,000 in 1993. When Hall's collection was auctioned by Superior in 1996, renowned collector Marshall Fogel purchased the card for $121,000.

Wormser-Candiotti Specimen. This specimen was from Ed Wormser's wonderful collection. Sold in the Wormser sale by Robert Edward Auctions in 1996. Resold by Superior in 1998 to former major league pitcher, Tom Candiotti, for $104,500.

Roehrig-Garcia Specimen. First sent in to PSA for grading by dealer Craig Roehrig. Sold to Peter Garcia in 1999 for $160,000. Resold by Superior to an anonymous collector in June, 2001 for $275,000.

WOW! all three purchases of the 10's were a long time ago! Nice...real nice returns on those babies!!!!

This lines up with the history I have heard about the card.
Mark Murphy consigned his 1952 Topps set to Richard Wolffers Auction House, owned by Duane Garrett. There was a $250,000 reserve on the set and it didn't sell. Bill Hughes was then in charge of brokering the set. He broke up the set to various collectors, David Hall being the one that purchased the Mantle. The card was then graded a PSA 10. It was decided that Hall owning PSA and being a collector was a conflict of interest so he auctioned his collection through Superior and that's where Fogel purchased the Mantle. The card was not from the Rosen find.
I enjoy the hobby history that goes along with cards like this and I have had some incredible conversations with Marshall Fogel. I went to his safety deposit box to look at his 52 Mantle. I brought a ruler, I brought a 40x lighted loupe, and I brought a UV flashlight. I was ready to pick the card apart. The only 2 slight imperfections I saw were a very subtle tilt and back centering that was a little off. The card is truly a remarkable specimen and a high end 10. It measures the full size of 2.65" x 3.75", the color is bold and bright, the corners and edges are sharp yet natural. Having never seen a high resolution scan of the card I was totally skeptical about was I was going to see. "David Hall bought a 1952 Mantle and graded it a 10? Uh huh. Ok Marshall, I'm sure it's great." But it is. I would think if they were cutting these from sheets they wouldn't have left a small tilt like the one on Marshall's, or a bigger tilt like the one on Kendrick's.
I also looked at Marshall's 1953 Mantle 10 with the same detail so I know which of the two in existence is superior. :D

Calling a card a "high end 10" seems kinda superfluous? Shouldn't all 10's be...10's?

Agreed. I never recall this being "common knowledge" and I don't ever remember it being posted on any major forum. Certainly, based on the condition of the 1952 Topps sheets, there's no way that white, sharp-cornered Mantles could come from unseparated, toned, creased cards. It defies reason. Not all, but many of the high grade 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle cards do indeed come from Rosen's find.

In my humble opinion, there can be a high end 10 and a low end 10 in exactly the same way there can be a high end 9 and a low end 9. It's not a drastic scale we are talking about here but if the teacher is grading a test and gives one student a 98 and one student a 95, are we going to call that equal? A PSA 10 can have 60/40 centering on the front. In my eyes, that probably wouldn't be a high end 10 or a card I'd like in my collection. PSA's grading standards state that a 10 is a "virtually" perfect card, not that they are flawless.

Evan - I am 99.9% sure that that Marshall's 1952 Mantle came from Rosen's find. I was actually involved in the transaction between Bill Hughes and David Hall at the time - it did not directly trade hands between them.

Also, and not a big deal, I believe that the set was consigned by Mike Murphy - Mark's dad.

Article on Marshall Fogel's PSA 10 Mantle in local paper
 

Noticed an article on Marshall Fogel's PSA 10 Mantle which compared it to the t206 Wager here in Portland, Maine today.

Patrick

I agree...I guess In my head a 10 should be perfect...otherwise it shouldn't be a 10...I forget about the "rules."

That makes much more sense. I went to school with Mark and he was much more interested in new stuff when we were in high school (graduated in 1990). His father is one of the nicest men I’ve ever known and we used to sit at the dining room table and look at that set. He was so proud of it and I don’t think Mark cared very much for vintage at the time. It was really my first exposure to older cards and it kind of ruined things for me...similar to sitting 15th row center stage for the Stones in ‘89. It doesn’t get much better! The Murphy’s moved down south a few years later and I never got to see those cards again...


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It could have. I couldn't say one way or the other, I'm just repeating what I heard from Marshall. And I think you're right about Mike Murphy as well.

I agree. This has come up a few times before. For those who dont think that one PSA 10 can be a higher end example than another look at a few 86 Jordans. Or the 75 Brett with print defects. Or the 68 bench with terrible back centering.

Guys, this is all being taken care of for us by this Purple Sticker thingy. Remember?

Jordan Rookie PSA 10's
 

.. I seem to remember an article in a magazine about 8 ?? years ago about a collector who was in the process of buying up every PSA 10 Jordan RC he could get his hands on , and how he was focused on a particular one owned by someone ( his brother ? ) which was the "best" one he had ever seen , yet he already owned dozens.....so just when you thing we in here are a sometimes-odd bunch , sleep easy guys , there's worse OCD ( and AR ) whackjobs running around out there....

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If he gets it into a bgs 10 holder no one would be calling him a whackjob. It probably turns a 20k card into a 100k card. There is a fine line between genius and insanity.

Anyone have a scan or picture of all 3 1952 topps mantle psa 10’s?

All TPG 10s aren't created equally? I still think there needs to be an 11. That would fix that issue!!

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