Holiday Inn Mantle Discussion
 

I had never even heard of these cards until recently. I picked up this holiday inn mantle card recently...from a long time yankees collector with an incredible collection. I can only find the GAI graded one that recently sold in heritage auction.

Does anyone know anything about this smaller sized mantle holiday inn card? I know some holiday inn cards were reproduced?

These aren’t real. These are fantasy pieces. Mantle had a few Holiday Inn postcards and a premium photo, but not actual cards like this.

GAI messed up with this one. The photo on the front is the one used for the premium but it is blank backed. Someone, knowingly or unknowingly, ripped you off unfortunately.

damn! had a feeling, thx!

seller is adamant they are real...but is willing to take return. he's a good guy with an incredibly deep yankees/mantle collection.

I can't seem to find anything about this card anywhere?

I am sure he thinks they are real as we’ve all picked up a fantasy piece or two accidentally along the way—I know a subject matter expert in oddball Mantle items and he lists a couple of fantasy pieces here and there. As for this one, it’s not something that was listed anywhere in the Sports Collectors Digest article on Holiday Inn items and is not included in any of the price guides, which leads to it not being real. What confirms it for me, however, is that I’ve been collecting oddball, regional, and Holiday Inn Mantle stuff for over ten years. These never popped up anywhere for the first seven years or so but, as soon as PSA started grading the premium photos they showed up in a large number on eBay. And they are all in fantastic shape.

If you’d like another opinion or two to put your mind at ease, Ben and Mike on here have phenomenal oddball collections including pretty large Holiday Inn collections and should be able to weigh in as well and confirm.

Pete, I tend to side with Chris on this one. I'm thinking it is a fairly modern construct and not a period piece. I think the only other time I've seen it is in this thread (at post 15):

https://net54baseball.com/showthread.php?t=198986

My go-to-guide on Mantle items is the Kelly Eisenhauer series in SCD. It's not listed or mentioned in his Holiday Inn article. Granted, I'm sure there are Mantle items that have not been documented to date, but I doubt this is one of them.

Things that make me think it is not a period piece:

(1) I would think that there would be many more of those floating around if it were actually from the Mantle Holiday Inn. Considering the number of other odd ball sized and shaped HI items that have survived, why aren't there more of these? Kids would have been more likely to save a normal card-sized item like this than other HI items.

(2) I tend to not like the phone number. It's surprising how many items do not include a phone number, especially when you think there would be one. For example, brochures. I have three different Mantle HI brochures, none of which give the phone number for the hotel. Why does this "card" have a phone number? In addition, the HI phone number when it is given on items, is either "MA 4-7400 (area code 417)" [as shown on two different letterheads] or "MAyfair 4-7400" [shown on two different letterheads and various matchbook covers]. The phone number on the "card" is "MA 4-7400." Doesn't match either known version. I know it's a minor point, but why is this presented differently?

When was the GAI example mistakenly graded, somewhere in the 2003-2005 range? If that date range is true, it seems like a fairly large gap of time between when that example was GAI graded and all of the other examples started popping up in recent years.

I have no idea about GAI grading so cannot say for certain when this was graded, just that there is a substantial certainty it was improperly graded as a genuine card when it is a fantasy piece.