Posted By:
Eric BrehmJim,
I bought the PSA 8 1952 Topps Mantle in the last Mile High Cards auction in June. I believe the card is from Alan Rosen's warehouse find (The Find, circa 1986) and was only graded for the first time in the past year.
I sold the card to raise money to buy more pre-war material, which is more interesting to me than the post-war stuff.
Barry,
I believe a lot of the 1952 Topps high numbers from Rosen's Find had centering problems that kept them from higher grades (as many of the 1952 Topps do), but yes I would expect a higher yield of Mint and Gem Mint examples from a lot of 30-40 cards taken from unopened packs. There must still be some out there that haven't been graded yet. They've got to be somewhere.
I remember also that in the 1980's we were less careful with cards than we are today (even valuable mint cards were carried around raw in boxes) so I expect you are right that some of them were probably mis-handled.