Several of those were mine. I thought Joe T did a great job presenting the data on them, in terms of how rare they are as compared to their unsigned counterparts— and then diving deeper into how hard it is to find a card with centering and eye appeal that also has been graced with a well placed and attractive autograph. In most cases, of the 20-50ish examples that exist for a given signed 50s Mantle, either an issue with the card or the auto results in what can best be called sub-optimal eye appeal, leaving single digits to choose from. And then most of those are held in collections.
Before I would select an example for my collection I would be sure to look at nearly all of the population to get a gauge for the general eye appeal. Some examples of the fun research:
I was certainly bummed to part with them, yet sometimes as collectors— akin to being GM of a team— we have to give up the very, very good to get the great in our clubhouse. For me, a longtime collecting goal which I never thought possible was to create this quartet pictured below and so when the chance arose I made the moves to make it happen.
