Rosen 1952 Topps Find
 

Does anyone have scans of the original ads that ran in SCD after Al Rosen made that amazing 1952 Topps high number find? I remember the ad was at least a whole page, and maybe several pages. I would love to drool over what I should have been buying when they were available.

David---not what you seek but something

https://r.search.yahoo.com/_ylt=A0ge...cXoJan6W6OlMQ-

Thanks Al, I read that too. So based on the fact that he bought the cards in the spring of 1986, the ads should have appeared in the summer and fall of 1986 I guess. And I found this on the web which came from Al's book:

I placed an advertisement in Sports Collectors Digest trying to sell the Mantles for $3,500 each, perfectly centered gem mint cards, and I ran photos with the advertisement. I didn't sell any Mantles at that price. I was crushed. So I started blowing them out, and most of them I sold to dealers for $2,000 each.
The last ten I sold to John Broggi of JKJ Sports Collectibles. He paid $12,500 for the ten of them.

That was 1986, right before the major baseball card boom.

He says, six months later, those same Mantles he sold were selling for up to $10,000 each and he wished he could go back in time.

Then a few years later, one of the Mantles he sold to Jim Copeland for $2,000 sold for $41,000 at auction.

He didn't really have much choice because he really needed to make his money back and they didn't sell initially like he thought they would.

Dang, the only issue of SCD I have from '86 is January, and no ad in that, of course. The one reason I kept that issue was for the great article about the '52 Bowman Football cards. Rosen had an ad in the June, 1986 issue of Baseball Cards Magazine, but it said nothing about 1952 Topps. Sorry I tossed out all of those old SCD's.

Thanks for looking Steve. I thought for sure some hoarder...er...I mean "Collector" :D would have a copy of SCD with the ad for the 1952 Topps find.

Agree this would be cool to see if he had pictures of the individual Mantles in SCD at some point. One of those wound up as the PSA 10 Marshall Fogel Mantle, which was brought out of it's safety deposit box and displayed for the first time in decades last year in Arizona, if I'm right. I'm not sure if the Ken Kendrick "Diamondbacks Collection" PSA 10 Mantle was from the Rosen find or not, but it's generally conceded that Fogel's is the better of the two.

Man, $2K? I was 9 years old in 1986 and in the middle of the transition from collecting Garbage Pail Kids to baseball cards. It's a moot point; my parents wouldn't have spent $200 on that card let alone two thousand, but...hindsight is a MF sometimes isn't it? :eek:

The Fogel Mantle, which was one of the Rosen Find cards.

I think it goes without saying that we all like vintage cards in nice condition, but this has to be the most ridiculously well-preserved baseball card I've ever seen...

You're right, that is an amazing card John. But why would they be wearing those kind of gloves to handle it when it's already in a slab? That's silly. Unless they're trying to imply the card surgeons got to it. :p

That's a card you wouldn't want to reholder for fear of damaging the card so I assume they are trying to preserve the slab the best they can?

Sci-Fi-ish
 

Maybe they suspected it came from outer space, since it's way too nice for us earthlings.;)

Yeah, the gloves are silly. I pointed that out as well when I first saw that picture on another thread. I think they were "unveiling" it wherever it was being displayed, and they did that for ooh's and aah's from the audience that was assembled. I think of more importance than using gloves, would be to get that slab into some kind of UV protected shell or something. Maybe they cared for that in the glass they put it behind.

I have mixed feelings over this 1952 Topps Find.

I understand that they weren't insanely popular when he bought them, after all, he couldn't get the money he wanted for the Mantles and sold ten OC examples for only $10,000 USD. I also understand that he paid $125,000 USD for the whole thing and I'm not sure how many dealers were willing to do that back then. However, in the end he grossed about half a million dollars. Is this the biggest robbery that ever took place in the hobby? What are your thoughts?

If you mean did Al Rosen rob the original owner, I guess I would have to give a qualified "no". I'm sure he made money on the find, but not an outrageous amount, and he was taking a risk with his money. He had to quickly turn the cards he had acquired, and that meant paying for advertising in the trade publications, on top of the price he paid to acquire them. His main risk was that by dropping all of these cards on the market at once he would water down the prices he could expect to receive. Which I guess is initially what happened with the Mantle. So he was blowing out 1952 Topps Mantles. That is an unbelievable consequence to realize at this point in history. If he could have held them long term, and sell them off slowly, he would have made much more money. But his business model was always to buy and then sell quickly. One article I read said he borrowed money to make the purchase. If that's true then that would mean he needed to sell the cards in order to pay off his lenders.

Personally, I don't think he robbed anyone. Sure, he made a killing in profit but he certainly didn't rob anyone. The seller and him came to an agreement and money was exchanged. As it was mentioned, Rosen took a big risk as well since vintage baseball cards weren't viewed as the investment they are today. Not sure why so many people get sour over this. If anything, we all dream about just owning one of those in just about any condition. He was a lucky SOB if anything.

You two make some good points.

I didn't know he had to take out a loan. He obviously had to pay interest on it. And yes, I'm assuming he had to pay quite a bit to advertise his big find. We also have to look at travelling as well - did he have to fly out to a few places to sell these? And finally, yes, there was that big risk involved. He sold them all off pretty quickly and this hurt the prices as a result. Also, holding them long-term would have been a risky move as well.

If I had a crystal ball!
 

He did drop Mantles to $2000! On the next page you could buy a "Limited Edition" Jose Canseco silk cachet for only $15.00:eek:

Not a big fan of Mr Mantle but I would have loved one of those Gem Mint Eddie Mathews for $650.:D

Interesting... no Tony Bartirome listed!

So what do you think 1980’s GEM MINT would translate to for PSA today - I am guessing most would come in at 6

From the few guys I know that even cared about grades then I would guess 7s with a few 8's.

I would have taken one of the OC Mantles and been very happy!

OK, I'll bite. Are those your notes and did you pull the trigger?

Those are my father's notes and he did purchase an "off-grade" Mantle for $1500 from the find that would probably grade a 5-6. He bought twice before they were gone and spent 10K in total. He sold a bunch of them about 5 years later to fund my sister's wedding. About the Gem Mint, I believe they were 8-10s with no "conservation necessary". They were razor-sharp and memorably bold. I still remember holding a Smoky Burgess and thinking that it looked much better than cards we were pulling from vending boxes at the time. If I remember correctly a good bit of Charlie Merkel's set is from Rosen.

At that time the Bartirome would have been considered just a common 52 high number for $65, it wasn’t until 5 years ago or so that the con man Cole Bartiromo manipulated the market and made the price of the 52 Topps Bartirome go up.

Forget the Mantle, guys! I'm looking at the best card from this set AND it's autographed!

https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/ubQAA...Tpm/s-l500.jpg

Thank you for posting that ad. I can see that it was in a different magazine, but they ran something very similar in SCD. I sure wish I had a bigger budget to put towards cards back then!

I really can't stand this guy and he didn't do anything for me with his so called "finds".

He put the hobby on the map.

Up to one's opinion if that helped or hindered today's market

I was enjoying the hobby long before he "put it on the map" and turned it into an industry.

Hence why I wrote up to peoples opinions.

I'm sure you enjoyed it before, but 90% of cards would probably have been through out if it wasnt for his loud mouth, gruff, and often irritating attitude. IMMEDIATELY after his find, prices starting going nuts, and the glut of the late 80s and 90s crapola started. Get rich quick investors, speculators, and the kids looking to retire in 20 years ( at 30 years old) all jumped aboard the train. People started digging through their attic, asking around, heading to yard sales looking for the next "Find" and have the "guy with the money fan" show up for their pay day. Was it a perfect storm, or something destined to happen? Nobody knows. This guy, Mr Mint (Mr vg-ex to many of us) brought it mainstream

You and me both!!

Can someone provide more detail about this? I am curious as to why this card is priced so high compared to other high numbers. What was done to manipulate the market? I completed my 1952 Topps set over 10 years ago, and at that time, I don't remember there being any problem finding this card in VG condition at a reasonable price.

Dolarscholar was/is hoarding them based on, allegedly, being of relation?

http://www.net54baseball.com/showthread.php?t=211710

I agree with Ted. Mr. Mint definitely played a huge role in turning the hobby into what it is today.

That is well put.

Thanks for the link to the old thread. Wow, it was quite the read.

You're welcome. :)