A Christmas Miracle - My first (and only) collector "find"

[Smarti5051]

About 15 minutes ago, I was joking with my Mother in Law about the Babe Ruth M-105 auction and suggesting they could replace my Christmas gift if they wanted to get it. She asked how much it cost and I gave her an estimate. She then asked, "how much is a signed baseball of Mickey Mantle go for?" I asked why, and she told me the story of how she was friends with Mickey Mantle's cousin Luke, and one day he brought in two baseballs signed by Mickey Mantle. One says "Bill, Best Wishes. Mickey Mantle" and the other said "Will, Best Wishes. Mickey Mantle" (my BIL and FIL). I asked if she still had them and she said yeah, they were upstairs in the cabinet somewhere. She goes upstairs, pulls out this old Maxwell blank cassette box, and inside are two signed baseballs embedded in some tissue paper. The beautiful thing is they have lived in that box in the closet and were never exposed to light for the past 50+ years, so the ink has not faded at all. Not quite a mint condition 52 Topps Mantle, but not a bad find that was discovered by accident.