The value of the 52 Topps Mantle card is not about supply (there are thousands). It’s not completely about demand (AH’s only get 20-40 bids typically). It’s more about being a hobby transcending asset with unparalleled total valuation, which grows its allure and people’s willingness to pay (A LOT) in every generation. I’ve never met or read about a collector who said in retrospect, ‘Gosh I’m glad I sold that dog’ but rather reflect, ‘Money aside, I really regret selling that.’

The 52 Topps Mantle could be perhaps at a total valuation of $350MM (taking total # of each grade from total POP reports x avg price sold for at those grades, plus $25MM est. for each PSA 10, factoring a hypothetical 15% total pop reduction from cross over). By comparison, the 1909 T206 Wagner’s total valuation for all graded cards might be approx $160MM.

With the SGC 9.5 being the highest selling sports card in history at $12.5MM, it continues to be one of the most recognized and celebrated King of Collectibles. And aside from buying one yesterday, buying one today is the next best thing.

Yeah... this is the issue
 

This is not really a discussion of the player... even if you decided that Mantle was THE best player of all time, I would think that he is overvalued... According to my calcs the value (market cap) of all of the PSA graded Mantles out there is close to $300 million (assuming $15 million for each of the PSA 10s and using the Cardladder current valuations)... $293.5 million of JUST the 1952 Topps...

Check the 1916 Sporting News Ruth's ... the pop is like 40 and sure they are valuable, but this is not even close.

I, for one, collect Negro League cards and many (most) historians would say that Oscar Charleston was a better, more important player than Mantle and if you could buy ALL of his cards, I bet that those would less than 3% of Mantle's 52 Topps. Of course he has more fans, more visibility, etc., but this is why I think that Mantle is so over-priced.

But the market is the market and I would hesitate to "do" anything on this analysis as the market has always "overvalued" Mantle as far as I can tell and I would not expect that to change. I have thought that it would for years (which is why I sold my 52 Mantle), but I have been wrong.

Here is the math
 

Grade PSA Pop CL Value Market Cap
10 3 15,000,000 45,000,000
9.5 -
9 6 10,010,000 60,060,000
8.5 5 2,380,000 11,900,000
8 35 1,330,000 46,550,000
7.5 7 438,220 3,067,540
7 77 244,010 18,788,770
6.5 5 208,960 1,044,800
6 122 136,110 16,605,420
5.5 21 163,340 3,430,140
5 181 109,550 19,828,550
4.5 35 75,600 2,646,000
4 216 79,680 17,210,880
3.5 47 85,940 4,039,180
3 203 55,230 11,211,690
2.5 88 40,500 3,564,000
2 230 44,430 10,218,900
1.5 90 36,370 3,273,300
1 364 35,860 13,053,040
A 206 10,000 2,060,000
293,552,210

So, Al ... do you have some Cuban Winter Leagues to show us??

Not always. In the early days of the hobby, they were equal. Even in the 80s, there was a small, ~10%, premium for Mantle. In some years, for example 1953 Topps, Mays was more. The premium started in the mid-eighties when New York dealers bought up Mantle cards and drove the prices up. Until the recent spike in Mays cards with the death of Aaron, the gap just kept expanding for ~35 years.

If stories are to be believed, a lot of the value of the 1952 Topps Mantle was due to Woody Gelman hoarding them. So, saying Mickey Mantle is "over-valued" really doesn't have anything to do with his ability, but due to dealers driving prices up to escalated levels.

Williams and Foxx were only on the same team for 3.5 years, and one of those Foxx wasn't half of his former self. Plus, I doubt Mantle + Foxx would have been able to do more damage then Williams + Foxx considering Williams was the better hitter in every facet.

Williams
AVG: .344
OBP: .482
SLG: 634
OPS+: 191

Mantle
BA: .298
OBP: .421
SLG: .557
OPS+: 172

Williams also had more WAR, more hits, and only 15 less home runs despite playing in almost a full season's worth of games less than Mantle in his career if counting stats are your thing.

Mick also struck out about 1000 times more than Williams in his career.

Why in your view did the gap keep expanding? There are too many Mantle cards, I would think, for anyone to buy up enough cards to meaningfully influence prices long term.

Ted Williams & Mantle, similar to Wilt Chamberlain & Bill Russell. Both Williams & Chamberlain were better than Mantle & Russell. However, Mantle and Russell were helping their stacked teams win multiple Championships.

Odd how the market works. Mantle's cardboard is quite a bit more expensive then Williams. But Russell and Chamberlain don't have similar cost difference.

Fear of missing out. New collectors look at the price guide and they see Mantle priced higher than others, so they want his cards. When prices are low, it is easy to buy something up, then demand takes over.

Add in SGC and Beckett graded ones and it comes out to approximately $350MM…

Interesting theory. For most goods and services I would think supply and demand dictate price, not that the price itself influences demand, but with baseball cards, who knows.

Sandy Koufax

PSA launched its services by awarding a plainly trimmed T206 Honus Wagner card a grade of NM/MT:

Therefore some tightening of standards could have been expected. It was very clearly needed.

;)

Yes, that's what you'd expect for goods and services alright. It's textbook economics.

But there's an investor/speculator crowd which believes that "the trend is your friend" and accordingly extrapolates past price changes on into the future. So increases in price can actually spur demand which is how price bubbles are created. Price bubbles like any other do of course eventually burst.

:(

OK... not sure what you want to see....
 

But how about.... this rare Willard Brown?

[So then I guess Mickey Mantle would be your nominee here?

:confused:

Well I suppose one could nitpick and "fault" Nolan Ryan for not having either a screwball or a knuckleball, but in his defence (and I'm not exactly one of his big fans) he still threw a whopping 222 complete games in 773 starts with an ERA of only 3.19 over his 27 seasons. Those are incredibly good numbers.

Meanwhile Pete Rose won two Gold Gloves in addition to batting .303 over 24 seasons. The only "deficiency" I can find in his game is that his highest stolen base total in any one season was only 20.

:confused:

Absolutely correct. A very good ballplayer who was on the decline and then a tragic ending.

He was absolutely declining and he was considering retiring. He was not going to stay in the game.

Ryan pitched in a very pitching-friendly era and environment, so his career ERA was only 12% better than league average over that time. He walked 4.7 per 9 innings for his career. He had tremendous strengths, of course, but his control was a definite weakness.

The two Gold Gloves notwithstanding, Rose was an average defensive player in his best years, and usually below that. His total offensive production was 18% better than league average - quite good, but not inner-circle great. Of course that is brought down somewhat by the fact that he hung around for several years as a mediocre-or-worse player to break the record. One can interpret that either way, I guess - that he was a better player than his career stats, or that he hurt his teams for his last several years. Or both, of course.

I always like to steer things to Prewar. Of course it was a hugely different pitching environment around the turn of the 20th century, and Ryan whizzed the ball in there at a very high velocity, but I have always been amazed that Cy Young completed 749 of his 815 games he started in his 22 year career, which is 91.9%! Even during his last six years when he was 40 years old and older, he completed 125 of 156 games started, a clip of 80.1%. And pitching all these innings (average of 343 per year throughout his career, which included finishing 84 games as well) and still maintaining a 2.63 career ERA. Impressive.

Brian

Nolan Ryan averaged 199 innings per year during his 27 year career. Even if you subtract out his first four years and his last year, which involved five of his six lowest innings pitched per year totals, his innings pitched per year is 219 during that 22 year stretch. As a reminder, Cy pitched an average of 334 innings per year during his ENTIRE 22 year career.

Brian

I'm not sure about Nolan Ryan's cards being super overvalued, but it certainly seems that for postwar HOF pitchers - his and Koufax's cards are in a different league than just about everyone else's.

I do think Ryan is overrated (unfortunately; he's one of my favorites) just in terms of how worshipped he is to this day by the garden variety modern baseball fan. At a high level, he was more unique than he was great - and great pitching is more than just strikeouts and no-hitters. Many of those touting Ryan as "the GOAT" all over social media seemingly have never heard of Bob Gibson, Juan Marichal, Tom Seaver, Steve Carlton, Jim Palmer, Fergie Jenkins, Gaylord Perry, and the list goes on from the 1960's to the 80's. That's just not right. For most if not all of those guys, Ryan has the advantage in K's and no-no's, and they have the advantage in literally everything else that goes into winning pitching - Record, ERA, BB %age, WHIP, FIP, CYA's, etc. etc. To me that's just not right. Nolan Ryan appeared in more than 800 games in his 27 year-career and he's the "GOAT" because of what - 7, 19, 30-something of those games? The no-hitters are impressive sure, but to me they have just been vastly blown out of proportion here in the 21st century.

MLB lowered the mound in 1969 because the pitchers dominated a bit too much. So, Ryan came in just after they adjusted in favor of the hitters.

Can you imagine what Ryan may have done with the higher mound pre-1969 !

Understood, the difference is a centered red E94 with that much saturation and eye appeal doesn't care what PSA thinks, I'm an old school green label guy for my PC and care very little about the grade. It would be a travesty to cross this card to PSA because they haven't figured out that all pre war cards should be presented with a black apron.

His two Gold Gloves speak much louder than your unsupported opinion.

Last "several" years?! No. You're overstating your case. His last year. Looking at his batting average in his final years:

1984: .286
1985: .264
1986: .219

I have a strong feeling that citing stats beyond batting average and ERA is going to be useless, so nevermind (although even if you’re only looking at BA, for 1984 you need to include his 314 plate appearances with the Expos along with his 107 for the Reds).

Whoops! I'm sorry. I got my eyes crossed and goofed when pecking out his batting average for 1984. I've now corrected it.

You're correct on that point as well.

;)

That's it precisely. It's not a case that Mickey Mantle wasn't as good (or better) than many of the other legendary superstars of his era. It's just that his on-field performance doesn't justify the large premium at which his cards trade and that's the precise subject of this thread.

:)

However, I give Rose a lot of credit for being able to play every position except P, C, and SS. That kind of flexibility is very valuable to a team. As his teams added and lost star players, Rose moved over to fill the need.

Primarily 2B until Helms and later Morgan came along, outfield until 1975 when Perez was moved to first and Rose to 3B, and then to first when he joined the Phillies, who already had third base covered.

And during the season, Pete often filled in on a game-by-game basis, wherever needed.

Context is important too - he was a 1B who slugged .337, .319, and .270 those three years. By any definition, that's awful.

Huh?! Was he awful at first? That's not something I've heard previously.

If not, his batting stats are a separate and distinct entity from where he played in the field. And while I agree that his last year was bench worthy, his previous two years were decent enough.

Meanwhile I hated the Big Red Machine in the 1970's because I was a Pittsburgh Pirates and Montréal Expos fan when it came to the National League but I now respect Pete Rose for his all out style of play. And so now I'm defending him! A lifetime .303 batting average despite playing for 24 years until 1986 warrants high praise.

;)

If more non-whites come into the hobby, then watch Mickey Mantle go even higher! :D

Yes, like I said in my earlier post, the 52T Mantle prices are beyond insane. But what are your thoughts on his other cards? I think they are priced just right.

Some Negro League players have really taken off. Look at the Leaf Paige, for example. It might not be on the same level as the 52T Mantle, but it’s certainly getting there. And then, of course, there is Josh Gibson. His Toleteros card is probably worth even more than the Mantle now.

Could you tell me more about this? Interesting. Anyone hear about this before ??

Yes, the Celtics were a loaded team. However, Russell was mostly used for shutting down opposing players. When it came to offense, his contributions were not that great. In other words, there were guys on his squad who were much-better scorers. As for Mantle, I would not say that he played on stacked teams. The Dodgers were stacked during that era: Jackie, Campy, Pee Wee, Duke, etc. Not the Yankees. Furthermore, Mantle was a scoring machine. None of the guys on his team came even close.