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?