[Seven]

I frankly don't think this card was/is ever overhyped. Over priced, perhaps but there are people willing to pay the cost of literally the post WWII hobby Icon. If they're willing to pay five or six figures for it, then frankly it's not overpriced. It doesn't matter if Mantle is overrated or not, or at this point, if you were alive to see him play or as the years go on alive in his lifetime.

Full disclosure, Mantle is my main collecting draw. I never saw the man play in person, He died shortly after my first birthday. I heard stories about him, they sounded like fiction, from my Father and my Grandfather. It made me want his cards, when I started getting into the hobby.

We can argue this until we're blue in the face, but the fact of the matter is, the price on his 52 Topps Card has never regressed in value, and short of the descendants of Sy Berger discovering a secret cache of 100,000 52 Topps Mantles, I strongly doubt it ever will.

If that's the card that keeps the hobby thriving, and keeps attracting newer generations of collectors, then it's a good thing in my book.