Quote:
Originally Posted by packs
Personally I find Mantle's 1957 Topps card his absolute worst. For a guy who had a ton of personality, his 57 Topps looks like it was taken at a morgue.
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To me his '57 is iconic, if for no other reason than when I first got interested in vintage cards in the 1980's - that image was everywhere. It seemed to be featured in many issues of Baseball Cards magazine and BBCM, etc.
I will agree the picture and production quality isn't fantastic. The card is overly dark, which leads to a lot of the print snow crap problems on the image itself, and in reality as with many other '57 Topps it's hard to find anywhere within shouting distance of centered. Adding to the problem with the dark image, many of them have what I call the "green / brown" vibe, which I don't think is attractive. However, some '57 Mantles instead of the green / brown present more in blue / green - and IMO these cards when centered decently look great.
I had been in search of a '57 Mantle with the qualities I was looking for forever, and finally found it earlier this year. I got a centered SGC 2, with some small creasing at the bottom that is not super noticeable and was tolerable to me. While it's not as "blue / green" on the image as I would like - it's more like that than green / brown and the image focus is sharp enough for me, so I bought it.
