[brunswickreeves]

Originally Posted by marcmandel

That's an easy one. I'm 60 this year and collected vintage baseball cards and memorablia starting back when I was 9 or 10 years old in the mid 70's. I grew up in New York (Long Island) and bought Ruths, Cobbs, DiMaggio's, Mantles, Gehrigs, Mathewsons, etc. even back then as a little kid. It was such a joy learning about the players and the game itself from those cards and the stories they held.

One weekend in the mid 70's I asked my folks to bring me to NYC to a hotel card show and walking inside I couldn't miss a wonderful '52 Topps Mantle in a case for sale. I asked the seller for the price and he said something along the lines of "$300" and it was in (from memory) decent shape.

Well, $300 may have been a billion to a 10 year old so I asked my Mom whether I could "borrow" $300 to buy it to which she said, "$300 for a baseball card?!?!? What are you CRAZY?" which was clearly a hard no. Case closed.

Well, I never forgot that card and dreamed of it for decades, even when I gave up buying cards by the early 80's, not to return to the hobby until early in the Pandemic looking for a hobby and feeling nostalgic.

I could not forget the '52 Mantle that got away and as I eased my way back into my hobby life that was amongst the big mountains I felt I needed to climb - getting one.

I was contacted by a dealer who's since become a dear and important friend, Ashish Jain who offered me a decent SGC 2 for $40K and I was able to sell a couple of my bigger cards at the time and excitedly bought the Mantle. I was over the moon.

I've since substantially upgraded the Mantle to a beautiful, centered 4.5 example that I plan to be buried with it in my permanent PC as having never given up the chase and now can enjoy the fruits of those dreams.

GREAT story and journey! Ash is a great guy and done a lot for the hobby and 52T Mantle collectors in particular. By chance was the SGC 2 this one?