OT-$282,587 for a Mantle PSA 9

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Posted By: JimCrandell

Thought this was deserving of its own thread as it was such a staggering amount. This was John Branca's PSA 9 1952 Topps sold in Memory Lane Auction this past week. Price includes buyers premium.

Boy just think what a PSA 10 would go for.

Nevertheless the Wagner PSA2 in the auction went for a bit more than this.

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Posted By: Cobby33

Some people simply have way too much money.

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Posted By: Jeff Lichtman

Sometimes I imagine how I would spend money on cards if it was no object at all. And I mean no virtually no object. I think I'd still have a hard time rationalizing spending that kind of money on a post-war card.

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Posted By: Al C.risafulli

I'd have a tough time spending that kind of money on ANY card.

That said, the '52 Mantle is one of the postwar cards on my want list. In my opinion it's one of the great cards of the hobby.

-Al

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Posted By: john/z28jd

I think that way too sometimes Jeff and i think the most id spend would be 20k on one card,but id go higher if i had to to get a K-Bats Pittsburgh team card. After that i just cant imagine spending that much on one card when you could get so many more cards for the same amount.Id rather go for quantity

Im pretty sure alot of mid-grade collectors on this board would hate me if i won the lottery

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Posted By: bruce Dorskind

Mickey Mantle is an American Icon.

He was a childhood hero to two generations of Americans
who are now at their peak earnings level.

It is not surprising that a very high grade Mantle card is able
to command $283,000. A PSA 10 would (there are 3) bring
at least $500,000 and possibly as much as one million dollars.

From a hobby perspective Hall of Famers in PSA 9 often command
6-10 times the price of PSA 8. In the case of Mantle the PSA 9
price is about 4.15 times the price of three PSA 8 examples auctioned
this year. It shoud also be noted that the price was positively influenced
by the fact that there was a concerted effort on the part of Memory Lane
to promote this Mantle card.

For those collectors who want a show case piece; one that they
can share with their non-collector friends, what could be more
fun than to purchase a Mantle?

Chances are the next PSA 9 example, whenever it sells, will command
an even higher price.

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Posted By: JimCrandell

Good points Bruce.


I don't disagree--with 8s now going for above $70K, is this really that outrageous for a 9. Heck a 10 would certainly go over 500K and possibly a lot more.

Jim

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Posted By: peter chao

Guys,

Let me put it this way, I'm addicted to baseball cards, but if I had the choice between buying a vacation home and buying a baseball card. I would say Mick you would've been the greatest switch-hitting lead-off hitter of all time and I love you. But I would rather have the home.

Peter

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Posted By: Jeff Lichtman

Jim and Bruce: I agree this is the most sacred card of the iconic Mick, but I think that because it is such an easy card to get (albeit at a lower grade) I am surprised at its recent near-300K selling price. For example: wouldn't you rather have the Wagner that sold in the same auction at about the same price?

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Posted By: JimB

Peter,
I think the winner of the Mantle did not have to make that choice. He can probably have both if he wants the vacation house too.
Jim

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Posted By: Bobby Binder

I know one of the owners of the Mantle PSA 10 and says he has been offered $550K and turned it down flat. So if and when it does come to auction expect it to go in the $750K range would be my guess.

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Posted By: Mark

A fool and his money, will soon part.....

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Posted By: greg

I'm still trying to figure out why these fetch the money they do.

Condition aside, how many of these things exist?

There must have been give or take a dozen of them at the Boston Show. I see them all the time up for auction. Is it really that rare a card?

greg

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Posted By: Eric Brehm

I'm surprised at how much that one went for because it has a definite 'tilt' in the image that (for me at least) significantly detracts from the appeal. If I were defining card grading standards, I would not allow such a card to be called 'Mint', which according to the original (Beckett) definition, meant free of defects, or with defects so minor they don't bother you at all.

I paid $72,000 for a PSA 8 1952 Topps Mantle earlier this year, apparently a world record price at the time, and to me it has as good or better eye appeal than the one that just sold in Memory Lane. I no longer own the card, but here is a scan of it:



The lure of PSA 9 is strong, however, and there aren't very many of them (total of 6 graded by PSA in the case of this card), and given the status of the 1952 Topps Mantle as the 'face of the hobby' and so on I can see how motivated buyers would compete aggressively for it.

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Posted By: Brian

"A fool and his money, will soon part....."

If someone has worked hard enough to have this kind of coin to spend on a card, I am sure they know how to handle a dollar.

I would spend that cash differently, but I respect the new owners success in life to treat himself to such luxury.

99% of the earth's population would think spending $1,000 on a baseball card a foolish thing to do...

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Posted By: JimCrandell

Eric,

Wow--that was a quick flip. Could you give us any info on the sale--who to and how much?

I do agree--that is a beautiful 8 and a good buy at $72K.

Jeff,

I would rather have that Mantle than a PSA 2 Wagner at an equal price.

Bobby,

If anything $750,000 for the 10 would likely be low.

Possibly the first postwar million dollar card.

Jim

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Posted By: barrysloate

If everyone's figures are correct, it's interesting that there have been only three 10's and six 9's graded, because the 1952 Topps case that was found in the early 1980's had something like 30-40 Mantles in it. Wouldn't you imagine all of them would be at least 9 with a smattering of 10's? They were all uncirculated. Maybe many were slightly mishandled from the time the case was discovered until the time they were graded (and I assume all are in holders by now).

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Posted By: JimCrandell

Barry,

I believe mind is from that find. The corners are nearperfect, the registration is perfect but the card is at a slight tilt and it is a bit o/c.

Grade 8 o/c. I was hoping to upgrade to a straight 8 but with strong 8s likely $75K or more I may have missed the market.

Jim

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Posted By: Jason Duncan

If I had the sources I would much rather have a centered SGC 88. That card is offcenter and tilted. I cannot believe it sold that high. I would rather have the Wagner for that kind of $$. This just goes to show that in this instance the buyer bought the PSA 9 holder and the visual appeal of the card was insignificant.


Jason

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Posted By: Richard Masson

And isn't the 52 Mantle a double printed high number?

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Posted By: Eric Brehm

Jim,

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.

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Posted By: joe brennan

There is a possibility the buyer may think the market will be strong and just holding it for a short while as an investment as some people hold vacation property for the same reason. I think its an awesome card and well deserved as an icon of the card hobby. The boom in the 80's was centered around the 52 set and this card.

Jim, Congrads on the PSA 8 OC. Even with the OC is still a fantastic pick up. Joe

People said it was a million dollar wound. But the government must keep that money, cause I ain't never seen a penny of it.

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Posted By: Paul

I will never understand why someone would pay $500K to $1M for a PSA 10 and "only" $280K for a PSA9 when the only difference between the two is the mood of the graders who reviewed the card, or the identities of the people who submitted them. You have to have an astonishing faith in the skills of the graders to believe that each PSA 10 is actually in better condition than each PSA 9. And that faith has to be almost religious in nature when you realize that you can't even verify for yourself that the 10 is actually in better shape than the 9 because both are encased in plastic, concealing subtle flaws.

I've also always been amazed at the relative multitude of high grade 52 Topps Mantles. I seem to remember there being some 52 Topps cards with only a single PSA8 and none higher. (Maybe this has changed recently; I don't follow it closely). Yet Mantle has had 3 PSA10s for as long as I can remember (I actually thought there were 4), and several PSA9s as well, and I don't know how many high grades from SGC. Seems strange. I know there's more incentive to submit high grade Mantles, but with the crazy prices that high grade 52 Topps "commons" will yield, I'd be surprised if there are too many Mint and Gem Mint Herman Wehmeier cards waiting to be graded.

With all that said, I obviously agree it's a nice card. Personally, if I had $280K to spend, I'd rather buy the Baltimore Ruth that sold for about 50K less than that, and use the difference to buy a Peck & Snyder Reds card, and still have a little chump change left over to buy a couple of mid-gride Old Judge Cabinet Hall of Famers. Or maybe I'd stock up on Hall of Famers from G&B, Yum Yum, and the N175 large set. But that's just me.

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Posted By: barrysloate

For those who don't remember, when Mr. whatever-his-name-is first offered the cards from the case for sale, the Mantles were priced at $2500 and $3500 each, I guess depending on the centering. He also offered complete runs of high numbers and semi-high numbers. I don't remember the exact price of those, but a complete high number run may have been around $8000. Since #311-313 are double-printed, there were of course some extra Mantles to be had. They sold briskly at those prices- they were high at the time but not totally extravagant. I guess we all should have bought a couple and somehow held onto them for twenty years.

And I agree with Paul that the difference between a 9 and a 10 is to a degree whether the grader had a good night's sleep or didn't show up to work the next day with a hangover. That's why the price discrepancy at those levels is truly remarkable (and not terribly sensible either).

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Posted By: JimCrandell

Paul,

The lowest pops in the set in 8 are cards 1 and 2--Pafko and Runnels--each pop 9s. The Maxwell is next at a pop 10.

Jim

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Posted By: barrysloate

There was a smaller find of low number packs a few years ago, so I guess that is where those originate. After the high number find, the low numbers were in a sense even more valuable in high grade because you just couldn't find them. It was tough to locate even an EX-MT Runnells in the days when EX-MT meant something. After the low number packs hit the market, the pop's changed.

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Posted By: E, Daniel

I've actually always thought that differences between a PSA8 and PSA9 were less significant than a 9 & 10......10's have always looked pretty clean to me and rarely stood out with a flaw I would have thought should hold it back to a 9, save perhaps centering.

But Jason Duncan's excellent observation in reference to an SGC88 I think is really interesting...current pop. report at SGC show only 2 88's, nothing higher.
I would take an SGC96 any day at that kind of dosh over the PSA, and I'm thinking with the current improvement in SGC prices one would sell at a 15-20% premium over a PSA9.
Now that would be one pretty card if it managed to get into an SGC holder.


daniel

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Posted By: JimCrandell

daniel,

Highly doubtful in my mind simply because of the PSASet Registry--more bidders and people who are looking to move up the Set Registry--the SGC 96 goes nothing for them in this regard and the registry is not very significant yet for SGC.

Jim

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Posted By: Wesley

If a 1976 Gretzky card or a 1957 Koufax card can sell for $80,000 each, I guess $282K for a 1952 Mantle is not as crazy as it initially sounds.

Personally I would never spend that kind of money on a postwar card. There are are least a two dozen prewar cards I would rather have. In fact, in the same auction, I thought the T206 Wagner that sold for just a little more was a much better deal.

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Posted By: E, Daniel

True Jim, but that SGC96 has a pretty decent chance at a PSA10


daniel

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Posted By: Wesley

In looking at the PSA Population Report, it is interesting to see that PSA has graded a total of 766 1952 Topps Mantle cards. No one would consider this rare or scarce.

Out of the 766 Mantles graded by PSA, there are 48 cards graded PSA 8, PSA 9 or PSA 10. Even by condition scarcity standards, no one would ever consider this card difficult.

I understand that this is one of the most recognizeable postwar cards and the marquee card in one of the most popular set ever, but high prices for a 1952 Mantle just do not seem like good value. The December Mastro auction had four for sale and the December SCP auction had four for sale. It just seems like there is an abundance of these cards.

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Posted By: Paul

Wesley, I agree. And I believe there is solid evidence that the card is actually a triple print, not a double print.

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Posted By: bruce Dorskind

It is most interesting to compare the auction prices realized for
the signature card of the three greatest New York Yankee outfielders
of all time. Listed below is the current PSA NQ population for Grades 8 and 9
and as well as auction prices realized in 2006- from Vintagecardprices.com

The number in ( ) represents the number of 2006 auctions of a given card


Pop 8 (NQ) Pop9 (NQ) Price 8 Price 9


Mantle 52 29 6 68,000(3) 283,000(1)


Dimaggio 41 25 5 9,200 (4) 60,000


Ruth 1933-144 32 4 18,000 (5)

Ruth 1933-149 18 0 42,000 (1)

Ruth 1933-189 31 6 20,000 (3) 72,000


It seems, for trading purposes, a 52 Mantle PSA 8 would get you any two Ruths of your
choice plus Dimaggio. For your PSA 9 Mantle you could have the PSA 9 Dimaggio and
the 181 PSA 9 Ruth and the 144 and 149 Ruth in 8 and still have $90,000 left to spend
with your fellow Board members.

What do you think?


Bruce Dorskind
America's Toughest Want List

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Posted By: JimCrandell

I think the DiMag and the Ruth's are a tremendous buy at these prices. remarkable.

Jim

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Posted By: Peter_Spaeth

Can anyone explain 4K for a PSA 8 59 Koufax, a $500-600 card?
http://www.memorylaneinc.com/site/bid/bidplace.asp?itemid=5319&getauctionid=64

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Posted By: Mark

"If someone has worked hard enough to have this kind of coin to spend on a card, I am sure they know how to handle a dollar."

Hey Brian, not everyone that has $100K to piss away on cardboard; has actually worked for a living; i.e. trusts, a massive silver spoon, etc.

Mark

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Posted By: warshawlaw

at a fraction of the price, too.

Of course, I can think of literally hundreds of cards I'd rather own than the 1952 Mantle given the cost involved. If someone wants to hand me one, well, OK, I guess I'd take it.

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Posted By: DMcD

Per Kevin Bacon in Diner : "Do you ever get the feeling that there's something going on that we don't know about?"

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Posted By: Bottom of the Ninth

I do not know pricing on much of the post war issues but the following are cards that are routinely available on ebay every month yet the prices sold significantly over SMR in this same auction. I had sent an email to a new member of the board who knows pricing on this material for his comment but he is not returning my email. Maybe this is the place to go to sell your post war cards...

1959 T Aaron PSA 8 $1579.20 OTD
http://www.memorylaneinc.com/site/bid/bidplace.asp?itemid=5321

1959 T Mantle PSA 8 $4460.30 OTD
http://www.memorylaneinc.com/site/bid/bidplace.asp?itemid=5316

1950 B Robinson PSA 8 $5030.18 OTD
http://www.memorylaneinc.com/site/bid/bidplace.asp?itemid=5112&getauctionid=64

1962 T F. Robinson PSA 8 $1475.63 OTD
http://www.memorylaneinc.com/site/bid/bidplace.asp?itemid=5364&getauctionid=64

1971 T Aaron PSA 8 $1264.3 OTD
http://www.memorylaneinc.com/site/bid/bidplace.asp?itemid=5436&getauctionid=64

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Posted By: Wesley

$1,579.20 is an amazing price to pay for a PSA 8 1959 Topps Aaron card.

The last six PSA 8 1959 Aaron cards that sold on ebay sold for $306, $345, $345, $493, $400 and $309 according to VCP. I guess the consignor in Memory Lane will not be complaining about the fees.

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Posted By: Joe Tocco

I think if you busted a 1982 wax case and got 30-40 Ripkens, you'd be very very lucky to get six 9's and 3 10's.

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Posted By: Peter_Spaeth

I can understand someone paying twice the going rate, maybe. But it makes ABSOLUTELY NO SENSE that TWO SOMEONES would bid against each other with both willing to pay many many multiples for cards that, as has been said, are available on an almost continuous basis on ebay and elsewhere. Something doth not look right to the naked eye. EDITED TO CORRECT TYPO ONLY

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Posted By: Bottom of the Ninth

Should I buy this one and consign it? I am sure the under bidder still needs an 8 despite the fact that s week ago an 8 on ebay did not open for $170. Guess they missed that one.

Or I can pick up this one and double up by seeing if Memory Lane can place it to the under bidder.

Edited to add the 59 Mantle

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Posted By: Peter_Spaeth

The one in Memory Lane only had white showing at 2 corners, surely that is worth a serious premium, no?

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Posted By: JimCrandell,

Greg,

I think you should call JP and ask him for the names of the underbidders. All auctioneers should be willing to help out a customer in this respect.

Jim

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Posted By: Frank Evanov

Even though they are plentiful, 1952 Topps Mantle prices remain strong due to the high demand. It's the card everyone wants. I don't see the prices coming down anytime soon.

Frank

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Posted By: Dylan

Bottom line, this is an iconic card. Infact I think you can only make a case for the T206 Wagner being more iconic then the 52 Mantle. These two cards are recognized by collector and non-collector alike. Yes prices continue to soar, but I havent heard of anyone losing their money buying Mantles and Wagners. These cards will always have a market, safe bet in my book.

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Posted By: fkw

Not a bad price for a player who averaged .298, 29 HRs and 83 RBI's a year.

Its hard to believe he only had 4 - 100 RBI seasons. What does Jeff Kent have, like 8??

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Posted By: Ricky Y

I think you throw any logic out the window when it comes to the 52 Mantle. It's a card even the causal collector knows about. Despite it being plentiful, a graded example has no trouble selling. I picked up a fair condition one some years ago that I thought I probably over paid for at the time....even though it was within my spending budget ...but I really wanted one. It's now housed in a PSA 1 holder..its creased with rounded corners but its centered 55/45 with no markings or other damage. I can probably triple the return of the original price if I sold it now...

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Posted By: Bob

I know it's blasphemy but I would rather have a PSA 6 52 Mantle and $225,000 to spend on pre-war SGC 50 and 60 caramel cards.