Is this 52 Mantle good?
 

Hey, y'all, I'm mostly a pre-WW1 collector, but always wanted a beater (cheap) 52 Topps Mantle. I know they are taking off in price, but this still may be too much for this card in this condition. Is it real? Thanks in advance...Rob
www.ebay.com/itm/301756380832

Nope. Stay far, far away. I've studied fake mantles, and this one fits that criteria. The give away is the base of the Y in Mickey's signature. On ALL authentic examples, it should practically touch the inner border of the signature box. On fake examples like this, there is a large space between. It's bad, bad.

Definte fake to me. The rounded corners is a dead giveaway, to not showing the t-bar across the top black borders. Also, the brown overlay at the bottom right is not visible.
Clearly this card was drug thru the age process to make it look old and hide stuff.
BTW, its GFA authenticating LOA. If thats a clue, why someone spend money not to send it to PSA/SGC

I would stay away as well. This one is clearly a fake. I believe a real 52 Mantle in similar condition would be in the 3500-4k range on ebay. I would spend the extra money and get one that's been PSA or SGC graded as a 1 or authentic.

Nope...looks artificially aged to me also.... and really GFA? Yeah even if its a beater like this but authentic I will send it to PSA and SGC if I was going to sell it....

Ricky Y

Baaad

Thanks
 

Thanks for the help, y'all. A low-grade, ungraded, 52 Topps Mantle has to be be one of the rarest cards around. I'm gonna keep looking.

Aren't 52T Mantles on the list of cards that are not supposed to listed on eBay unless they have been graded? There is a reason a card that expensive would be listed on eBay without being graded. That reason is almost always because the card is not real. A 1952 Topps Mantle seems like way too expensive a card to gamble on buying raw off eBay.

With all the fakes in slabs, that isn't so helpful either.

I realize there are fake cards in slabs. But a raw card that expensive/iconic should set off sirens as to its authenticity. How many real 52T Mantles are on eBay raw compared to the number of raw reprints of that card?

I would advise against this. Odds are you're going to end up with a fake. Even though there are fakes in slabs, your chances of getting a real one are much greater. If you really want a raw one in your collection just crack out a PSA 1.

But...but....it has an authentication letter from Microsoft Word! Has to be legit...:D

New guy here so I obviously don't know, but would someone go to all that trouble making a 52 Mantle look that worn/used?
I am surprised at the price, so maybe it's worth it, but it just seem like a lot of work to me to produce that card?

What am I missing?

Hi Irv,

For a high demand card like that people WILL go through the trouble of making it look aged because someone will bite and go for it. You will see it also on cards like 33 Goudey Babe Ruth cards all the time. At the top of each post you can see that we have a "search" option where you can look up past posts/threads...you can type in fake 52 MANTLE and can get more information on it.

Ricky Y

Thanks, Rickyy, wasn't aware of that option. :cool: