1952T Mantle price drops
 

Beautiful 8 in Goldin just sold for 1.1M.

https://goldin.co/item/1952-topps-31...JkSW5kZXgiOjB9

Last two prices 2M plus and 1.5M plus.

https://www.psacard.com/auctionprice...auction/495470

At that rate, I can pick up a nice one in……319 years.

I don't even want one. It's a hideous, cartoonish piece of cardboard. To pay that kind of money for cardboard is stupid when folks struggle to make ends meet. All it is is an investment for the one percenters. Big f-ing deal.

But James, if you disapprove of people spending a lot of money on cards, aren't you with due respect kind of in the wrong place?

Ive had three over the years, of course sold before the run. I personally like the card, but not sure if that is predicated on it being the Top post war card in existence.
Would like to have another , but prices are going to need to come back down to a "reasonable " level, not sure that will ever happen.
I expect a correction in most cards , including Mantle and clearly there is weakening to Peters point.
I don't expect the 3's to come down to less than 20k again though.

Is there a cross over point where the price you are willing to pay for a card, any card, puts you in the stupid category ?

Impossible; I was told by this board that the cards being hyped are the safest picks and inexorably go up, and I should drain my 401K taking a massive tax loss to invest into these hype cards and also take out loans to buy more cards to help pump investors portfolios. I mean, to invest for myself.

Well maybe that could be argued, but conversely is there ever a point where you are stupid not to buy? I think these questions aren't mutually exclusive.

Cartoonish? I think it's beautiful. Plenty of cartoonish cards in the 1950-52 Bowman and '53 Topps. Yes, I said it. Many 1953 Topps are hideous. Don't understand the praise most of the time.

I say we do a go fund me page for net54 baseball so Leon can purchase one

Wow it’s the same card somebody lost $850,000 ,
(Unless of course it changed hands between sales)

More Pain will be coming.

Reasonably or unreasonably sure I passed that point a while ago.

Good ROI.

I have only owned one. Twenty five or so years ago I bought a raw one I thought would grade 5. Paid $6K for it. It was worth $8K at that time in a 5 and $6K in a 4. It graded 4. Sold it for $6K. Lost the $50 grading fee. Yes, at that time PSA would grade a ‘52 Topps Mantle for $50 with two day service. Good old days on fees. Don’t think I will be losing $850K on one any time soon.

Here is VCP data on PSA 8’s (the 1st pic) and PSA 2’s (the 2nd pic). I recognize that eye appeal can vary much more between PSA 2’s vs PSA 8’s (all of which should be dang nice), but it appears the card in both grades has come down about 50% from their peaks.

I think it’s a upper-most/top card, just like the 1987 Fleer Jordan. But, also like the Fleer Jordan, they are plentiful and available. Anyone willing to spend the cash can get one. It seems like there are 2-4 in every large auction I look at (Heritage, REA, etc) and 5-8 in every Goldin auction. It’s just too common a card. PSA 8s may not be as common, but at that point you may be buying the flip and not the card. If you have the money and you want a Mantle (or Jordan), just wait until the next auction and you will have plenty to choose from.

All good points except one: I think it is a nice-looking card.

https://photos.imageevent.com/exhibi...antle%201.jpeg

But I happen to like the 1952 set. Not as nice as some of the other cards in the set,

https://photos.imageevent.com/exhibi...20Thompson.jpg

but not a dog either, given that it is a Flexichrome, not real photo.

I happen to think the 1953 Topps is far more cartoonish and unattractive, but I am in the minority there.

Hoping the mid grade continue to drop a little more, as I’m selfishly trying to take advantage to have a real go at finishing my set. Beyond set needs, I actually like the card. I’ve always wanted one, just haven’t been in position to purchase the ones I’ve came across.

I actually took motivation from a recent member on here who sold their collection to buy a 52T Mantle. Decided to take a similar approach, sent a big group of cards to REA for their fall auction. Hoping I can pull enough to shop for a nice VG-VG/EX Mantle.

I was talking to a long time collector today about this post and 52 mantle in general. We both believe you will be able to get a nice psa or Sgc 5 52 mantle for under 6 figures in the near future.

Like the '51 Bowman of Paul Richards.

People that have the means to buy that card worked hard for their money, so I would refrain from telling people how they should spend their money. Just my $.02…


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I’d agree, but the Mantle investors don’t seem to have a problem telling everyone else to spend their hard-earned money to further pump investors favored card(s) :rolleyes: . Seems like it should go both ways then. Posts would drop like 50% if people didn’t advise or tell others how and what and for how much they should buy cards and spend their money.

I don't care if mine tanks I love it, its my grail and I could give a rats a$$ what anyone else thinks.

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The majority of the variance in hammer prices can be explained by the eye appeal.

That said, there has definitely been a significant shift in the market ever since the terrorist attack in Israel. People are afraid of a much larger conflict brewing.

Great point!


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Whole heartedly agree.

Maybe generally true, but in this case it was the exact card in question that sold for 850K less, so eye appeal can't be the explanation.

Agree. Plus, on the PSA 2 comps, there are enough sales to show that prices are falling/have fallen (quite a bit) across the board, and it can’t all be eye appeal with so many examples - 12 since April 2022, including Scott’s Collector Connection sale (great result Scott).

Eye appeal matters, a lot especially with these commodity cards (more common). But that’s not the answer here. Values have fallen

A PSA 3....ok when I was building my set, for an exception example I wanted to pay 10k, and the card was selling just a little higher than that. Still waiting for "my price" even with inflation, what significantly has happened in the last decade for this card to magically "go up" 8-10x? Soley, and based on the sentiment here, more people thinking it will just go up!

The most scary thing this Halloween? The card market.

The more money a card costs the more it can go down. (DUH)..... And a 52 Mantle isn't rare, as has been stated.

My most expensive cards can go down and it's not going to be a 5 or 6 figure drop. I play at the quarter tables.They can stll be fun and entertaining, for us without the large stacks of chips :).

https://luckeycards.com/ox3.jpg

i might be a 52 topps mantle buyer if lower grades could once again be had for around 5k. i would not be shocked?

Leon is that Coach Harbaugh and the rest of the Mich. Staff ?

Pete, I think the boat has left the pier for that one.

Not happening IMO. Not even close.

Yes, but that sale was from October 2021, during the height of the covid boom. A lot of cards way oversold at that time. Recent PSA 8 comps have been much lower. The last one sold for less than a million. I probably would've guessed this one would close at $1.3M or $1.4M with its eye appeal, so it undersold my expectations, but not by a huge margin. I don't think anyone was expecting another $2M PSA 8 sale.

It seems as though the card market is acting rather irrationally at the moment. I've been getting slaughtered on my consignments this month. Doing about 60% of my expectations, and I'm usually not off by more than about 10%. Something has definitely changed. And it's not just the modern market. Higher end and mid range vintage are both experiencing some significant downward pressures this month.

I really do wonder if the war in Israel/Palestine is having a significant effect on the card market.

I think the rise in interest rates from 4% to 5% in little more than a month has provided a tipping point that is finally convincing most people that interest rates are going to be "higher longer". It is much harder to rationalize "investing" in cards when bank deposits reliably pay significant interest.

The knife could still have further to fall, the further it goes the deeper it cuts. The issue is what is the true value of these cards ? To me the dust hasn’t settle yet. It will in time....

Separate from the short terms ups or downs, how many of you worry about the longer term prices given the quite disturbing downward trend in the popularity of baseball in general? Will the next generation of collectors want any of these cards? It's hard for me to look at the trend in World Series viewership numbers and not get depressed. Game 2 was down to around 8 million viewers, less than half of a mediocre regular season NFL game. I realize with vastly different numbers of games per season it's not apples to apples, but still...

Yes because a lot of these guys don’t even like baseball; they like the financial aspect the cards can bring.

I think it's likely that the viewership numbers are down because of the unlikely, smaller-market teams in the WS, not because baseball's popularity is fading. If it was Yankees-Dodgers, you'd have to think the numbers would be through the roof.

I blame John Smoltz. Why does anyone think he is the one the country wants to listen to in the most important games? :)

OMG he is so, so horrible. I'd rather them invite a random fan into the booth to do commentary.

Do we think the Ruth rookie will come down also??

I might be sticking my neck out on this, but I believe the 1951 Bowman of Paul Richards is a fine looking, interesting card. If you beg to differ, feel free to share your opinion...I'm all ears.

A playing card set should be issued where all the players are drawn in caricature and have elongated necks. It could be called the All Necks on Deck.


Brian (one of the artists must have really hated Paul Richards, or perhaps accidentally slipped into caricature mode)

Depends on whether the previous buyers were purely investors or collectors. If collectors, the price will hold. That's my humble opinion.

Yup. When 'safe' yields soar, everything else looks less attractive. A million bucks yielding $50K in income is a whole lot more enticing than sitting on a Mantle until the next price cycle.

One of the NLCS games, a team fell behind 3-0 in the first. Smoltz pointed out the key for the manager of the team down was to “take it one inning at at a time”. I mean really. Someone is getting paid big bucks to say profound things like that? Take it one inning at a time? Is there some alternative I’m not aware of?

Baseball set attendance records this year. You wouldn’t know from the old men complaining on this board though.

Jawlines
 

.. that jawline cries out for caricature


http://imagehost.vendio.com/a/204295...CHARDS_NEW.JPG

Is this data wrong? Attendance seems to have receded over time. https://www.statista.com/statistics/...lb-since-2006/

Ha yes I remember that. Another gem he likes to say is, when there's a three ball count, "See, what you really don't wanna do if you're the pitcher is walk the batter here." Really John? Thanks for that...

exactly???? what is the purpose of the comment to this group? definitely not well recieved.

Gee, didn't we just have a thread about Wagner cards going up ?

And didn't Mantle cards get pumped up and were particularly hot during the recent boom ?

What goes up too fast has a better chance of falling when the hype is over. See what '86 Fleer Jordan's have done lately.

The argument in favor of Wagner is the scarcity. Not quite so with the Mick. I just hope T206's can hold steady-ish.

Markets go up and markets go down and sometimes they stagnate. Trees don't grow to the sky as they say on the Street.

It's funny that there are people on the board who are always crying things are about to crash to the floor, and other who can't force themselves to admit that prices have dropped on a lot of vintage.

For that lack of a better expression, it is what it is. A time of financial uncertainty for a lot of people. Enjoy what you have and chill on the sidelines for a while if need be. A financial friend told me that the average American has a surplus of $8 in their check account right now.

Hobby still an enjoyable place to spend some time and admire cool baseball stuff. I've learned in recent years to enjoy cool stuff no matter the value or the price.

Guess there a bunch of ways to measure these things.

https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/...spike-30-years

https://www.wbsc.org/en/news/basebal...se-in-20-years

Am I an old man on the forum? I'm curious how old you think I am, and also why you would even think that's relevant to the data which is pretty easily quantified and not exactly subjective?

Overall viewership is drastically down from where it peaked in the 70s when baseball was still the most popular sport in the country. Now it's barely top three. Attendance numbers are up this year only compared to the pandemic years, and are down compared with every year from 2004 through 2017. But that's just a measure of local fanbases (plus urban population growth), not overall popularity of the sport which I would guess will be a better indicator of the collector market moving forward. That last part's just an opinion, but the overall stats on the declining popularity of baseball are just facts, like it or not.

The data I've seen shows the numbers are fairly level around 70 million tickets per season for every year since the mid to late 90s. The numbers are up this year compared with the past few pandemic years, but things have been fairly consistent year to year. But that's despite pretty significantly growing urban populations and overall population, while attendance in other sports has grown quite a bit during a comparable period. Overall viewership however is way down. World Series games drew over 30 million viewers per game in the late 70s, down to under 10 million/game this year.

Those are MLB propaganda articles bragging about record setting one-year increases relative to the pandemic years (which they don't mention). I take it you're not a data scientist in your day job?

And for the record, I wasn't predicting a drop in the card market, I was asking for folks' opinions on the extent to which overall baseball popularity (which is objectively on a downward trend when you take more than a one year view) is strongly coupled to the card market value. I don't have a strong opinion one way or the other on this question.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/maurybr...vertisers/amp/

No doubt more propaganda.

The price of a '52 Mantle in "8" grade dropping doesn't affect me because that card in that condition is so far out of my collecting budget stratosphere that it means nothing.

What would be interesting to see is if this trickles down to the lower grades. If 1s and 2s are impacted by similar percentage drops, then that would be an interesting correlation. In that case, my guess would be the entire card market is dropping back. As I always mention in these threads, I couldn't care less because it's card board and not part of an "investment" portfolio (to me).

The second screen in Ryan's post are PSA 2 numbers.

My favorite quote from this article (typo is theirs, not mine) had to be “I was is unable to independently verify the totals as source data is not within the report.” :-) As a lifelong baseball fanatic, I do hope you are right and I am wrong, so honestly I’m routing for your side of this discussion! Makes me very sad to think baseball popularity is on the decline, and I’d be thrilled if the article you shared is correct. Though I have no clue (and this article doesn’t really clarify) how advertisers measure value, and if it really has anything to do with the actual popularity or engagement with the sport.

Which auction house was the last 52 topps mantle psa 8 which sold for under a million?

I don't think collectors necessarily feel the need to watch baseball so much as they appreciate it. Speaking for myself, I almost never watch MLB games anymore. I might catch an inning or two of a few playoff games here or there, but I haven't sat down to watch a full game in decades. I do watch highlights with some degree of regularity, and I do pay attention to player stats throughout the season, but that's about it. I simply don't have time to watch baseball games, and even if I did, I could find a thousand other things I'd rather be doing. However, I watch dozens of full NBA and NFL games every year. I even watch full soccer matches during the world cup. But my collection is probably ~60% baseball and ~40% basketball, with less than 1% other sports. There's just something nostalgic about baseball cards that other sports don't offer. I'll continue to collect them even if I never watch another game of baseball on TV in my entire life (a fairly high likelihood).

Goldin. Just last month.

..

Thanks for this input! I believe my situation is similar to what you describe, for me the love of the game has become more about the history and the nostalgia than it is about continuing to watch every game. Though I did watch quite a bit more this past season, and probably was part of the increase in popularity this past season referred to by the previous poster (pitch clock change, crazy buzz around Ohtani, and several other factors also had a lot to do with that bump I'd assume, will be interesting to see if it continues). But I still worry that you and I are holdovers from perhaps having had parents and grandparents who loved, and did watch baseball more than any other sport. I wonder if this nostalgia will still be there for our kids and grandkids. I very much hope it is, otherwise my collectibles will just go to waste :)

Please, let’s not over analyze this. I don’t care about the World Series if my teams aren’t playing. The two in there are not known for their national fan bases. It’s a who cares series everywhere except Dallas and Phoenix. Punch in the Yankees or Dodgers or Cubs or Red Sox instead and viewership will go right up.

The point I'm trying to make is not about single year fluctuations due to any number of specific factors (yes it's not at all surprising viewership is down for THIS particular WS given the teams). I'm referring to very pronounced decades-long trends in overall popularity, and wondering if my (middle-aged) generation's nostalgic love for this sport will go the way of the dinosaurs, or somehow be sustained by folks who collect without actually engaging with the sport more directly. I think many of you are missing the forest for the trees on this one, but that will be it for me, didn't mean to hijack the thread!

While I do think the Mantle rookie was inflated by the Covid boom, and did expect some regression, I don't think it's going to go down much more. Sure times are uncertain, between the economy, and the conflicts going on overseas, but I think this is pretty much all we see in terms of price drops. I could be wrong.

His 1952 Topps issue, is certainly not going back to pre-covid prices. Would I be surprised if one graded a PSA 1 sells for a touch more than 20K? No. But I think the days of getting one for under 15K are long gone.

While most people around here don’t think this is possible, I’m more on the side that anything is possible. Given enough economic pain and trouble, then stuff we don’t currently view as possible can suddenly become reality.

As humans, we’re just too focused on the present situation to imagine that crazy stuff could happen that greatly deviates from the current glide path. And even less likely to go onto a public chat board and suggest that it could really happen.

So don’t lose hope just yet! At the same time, hopefully you don’t feel too bummed if it never happens, or if you have to wait a long time for it to get here.

There isn't a whole new group of die hard collectors looking to add a 1952 topps mantle. It took generations to go from 1k to 5k card in low grade, it just isn't possible to go up 10x in 10 years and stay there. Soon as the flippers panic, watch out below. A psa 8 for 100-150k is still "a lot of money" less than 10 years ago

Who gives a flying f$&k

Phil - Thank you.

Second screen shot in post# 16

Quite the drop in a short period of time for PSA2 52T Mantles. I'm guessing some would like to believe that the cards sold earlier (higher $$) were just nicer examples of a "2" grade. ;)

So, what's next?

Are Ruths, Cobbs, Wagners, WoJos and Mattys dropping this much? Sorry, I don't follow these trends too closely.

I appreciate that but I do not think that current sports fandom closely correlates with collecting. I don't like most sports as a spectator, but I definitely enjoy collecting cards from those sports. For collectors like me, collecting in and of itself is an end, not an expression of fandom. I mean, I never saw Babe Ruth play but I sure appreciate his cards.

This post asked about the Drop in the 1952 Mantle..... can you imagine how the person feels who bought the 52 SGC 5 in REA for $306,000 in August 2022....ugh YIKES

It is a simple printed picture on a piece of paper. The fact it is worth more than a few cents amazes me. Not to worry some day it will be worth a few cents.:D

The first step is admitting you have a problem.

Hello, my name is Phil and I collect little pictures of dead men in uniform..

Pre-war anonymous support group:

Welcome Phil, would you like to tell your story?