[brian1961]

First, a 1953-55 Dormand Postcard of Mickey Mantle, batting pose, in PSA 7. I owned one for many years, until I sold my set in the 90s. It was very pleasing to get this one back again. With Louis's use of brilliant Kodachrome, it's Mickey in living color, mid-1953.

Second, a LOTG auction win during Al's summer event, a 1962 Gehl's Gold Mine Ice Cream premium of Roger Maris, the full length batting pose, in PSA 6.5. Extremely satisfying. I have wanted a specimen of this great, teenzie set every since Bill Heitman penned a brief, but marvelous piece in the old esteemed hobby paper, THE TRADER SPEAKS, about very rare cards, back in about 1979-80.

On another niche, for many years I have admired the famous photo, at least to Mickey Mantle collectors, of The Commerce Comet taken by Ray Gallo in September 1956. Mick was relaxed and happy in the dugout, prior to a game at Fenway Park. Mickey later said it was his favorite picture of himself.

Mr. Gallo decided to become a small entrepreneur. In July 1980, when the Mickey Mantle card collecting mania was starting to become red-hot, he had renown, gifted artist Yvette Andreoni hand-color his famous photo of Mick. He then created a limited number of prints, each with a notary public style embossed stamp on the lower left corner, and had Mickey autograph them. When I first saw a picture of one, featured on the cover of SPORTS COLLECTORS DIGEST, it was love at first sight. Probably because I was concentrating on Mick's cards back then, I failed to buy one of those elegant 8 X 10 colorized prints. Long to short, early this year I found one on EBAY, already PSA / DNAed. The cost proved how much these super beautiful prints had appreciated in 30 years. There were several others, all priced about the same, or even higher. Shoulda bought one back when Mr. Gallo offered them--yeah, yeah, yeah..... Nevertheless, it was worth every penny to me. My first, and my only, Mickey Mantle autograph. The print stands as a definite and defiant example of a Mantle item that has way more eye appeal than most of Mickey's cards, and that's saying something. With this much "Hee Haw-ing", you would all rightly demand an image from me. Maybe later in the week I'll get my son, when he comes home for Christmas, to edit this post, and load it up for youse guys. It is December 23rd, and my dear son has now loaded up the image of the Ray Gallo Mickey Mantle autographed photo!

Thanks for listening. Hope you didn't mind the long story.

---Brian Powell