What are the best vintage, investment-type players in your opinion?

[Exhibitman]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

Don't equivalent Mantle cards still outsell Mays pretty handily? Just to pick a few years, 56, 57, 58?

Yes, and I think Mantle 'awareness' due to the 1952 Topps is one of the factors that goes into driving overall Mantle prices, and I think it is a big one. I know it is flawed inductive reasoning, but we can eliminate many of the other factors that might otherwise explain it:

--As the stats guys have already argued, Mantle towers above other, better players in terms of overall card prices. There has to be a reason for Mantle's prominence that is not performance-based.

--Some of that is Yankees mystique, but not a lot of it. Joe DiMaggio has as much Yankee mystique as anyone, The Yankee Clipper, Mr. Marilyn Monroe, so why does Joe DiMaggio show up consistently in the undervalued lists?

--There is also an argument that the boomer generation with fond Mantle memories distorts the pricing curve. I get that boomers were the generation that kicked off the card collecting craze, and that they knew of Mantle through all of those post-season nationally-televised World Series appearances, but generations have never been the prime drivers of prices on the best cards. No one alive today saw Cobb or Wagner play; doesn't seem to have messed with their card prices.

--Race is a factor, I think, but a diminishing one as the more racist generations die out. I was born a generation after integration of the game, around the time Jim Crow was outlawed, and collectors my age idolized many black players: Aaron, Clemente, Gibson, Brock, etc. In my childhood group of white kids in NYC, for example, I was an Aaron fan and one of my best friends was a Clemente guy. I don't think race per se is a big factor in the value differences.

--I also have to cite hobby-related card behavior as a factor in the hobby's perceptions of these players. Mays was a dick at shows. Mantle wasn't. I know I was a Mays fan but dumped my Mays collection after 'meeting' the man at a show. I have to believe that there is some percentage of collectors who were similarly turned off by certain players at shows and other encounters.