OT-$282,587 for a Mantle PSA 9

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Posted By: JimCrandell

Bob,

Are you out of your mind????

Jim

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Posted By: Dan Kravitz

WOW! I think that someone is going to take a bath when they want to sell it in the future. Wait... I think I hear the water running now.

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Posted By: Josh Adams

Bob,
I agree, I'd take that deal too.


Josh
(not out of his mind)

Go Go White Sox
2005 World Series Champions!

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Posted By: Steve

I know it's blasphemy but I would rather have a PSA 6 52 Mantle and $225,000 to spend on pre-war SGC 50 and 60 caramel cards.



Me, you and probably 95% of the people here.

That particular 9 was not centered perfectly and also had a slight tilt.


I'd prefer a well centered true ex/mnt example myself.


Steve

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Posted By: Ted Zanidakis

It's not perfect.....but, I like the price I paid for my MICKEY.

See, it does pay to be an old dude, sometimes.....who was very fortunate to have saved his BB card collection.

T-Rex TED

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Posted By: Tom Boblitt

I'll take a 5 and $235K. I can buy a few OJ's with $235K.....or re-start my W600 collection that I sold a few years back......albeit at a MUCH higher price....

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Posted By: Mark Evans

Got lots of uses for the leftover gelt -- CJ Jackson, Guy Zinn and my granddaughter's education, not necessarily in that order. Mark

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Posted By: cmoking

Steve wrote: "I know it's blasphemy but I would rather have a PSA 6 52 Mantle and $225,000 to spend on pre-war SGC 50 and 60 caramel cards."

I agree with Steve for my personal collection. But that's also because I have a budget that's limited. If I had a $20 million budget for cards, buying a PSA 9 Mantle would not stop me from getting alot of other SGC 50/60 Caramel Cards...it would be just an "addition to", not an "instead of"

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Posted By: Al C.risafulli

I'd be thrilled with a nice 2 or 3.

-Al

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Posted By: Ryan Christoff

I'd go for the $282,587 straight up, hold the Mantle, irrespective of grade.

I still don't see what this has to do with Allen Iverson or the Nuggets.

-Ryan

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Posted By: Richard Masson

I know this has probably been asked and answered a million times, but why is this Mantle so popular? The 51 Bowman is the rookie and even though it is a 52 Topps high number, it is one of the double printed cards. I never understood why it is such a big deal.

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Posted By: MVSNYC

even though i do collect higher grade cards usually, for the record, i would take the T206 Wagner PSA 2 over the 52 Mantle 9 anyday...

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Posted By: Ted Zanidakis

In 1980, on the front page of the Philly Inquirer there was a pix of two BB card dealers
in the Philly area who auctioned off THREE 1952T Mantle's for $10,000....total.

This made news in the hobby nationwide, and the "hype" began, and the rest is history.

T-Rex TED

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Posted By: Hal Lewis

Ted:

I know that you were a collector back in the early 1950's...

so do you remember whether the 1952 Topps was more popular than the 1951 Bowman back then... and if so, why?

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Posted By: Al C.risafulli

Richard, that's a good question. Maybe the overall popularity of the 52 set? Or the larger format? Or the legend of the high numbers being dumped into the sea?

As far as Iverson goes, Kenyon Martin will EAT Allen Iverson the first time he gets out of line. So I wouldn't expect any on-court issues with Iverson. If the Nuggets can keep a strong team with those three huge contracts (and egos), and if Kenyon can come back strong from the surgery, and if Iverson passes the ball once in a while, Denver will be tough for a long time.

-Al

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Posted By: JimCrandell

I would take the psa 8 52T Mantle that sold in Drent's auction for $72,000(that was a great buy)and use the oproceeds to buy some of the 52 cards I need to complete the set in psa 8 or better. Is another psa 8 Pafko ever going to appear and would the price be higher than the Mantle in 8?

Jim

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Posted By: barrysloate

Richard- I think 1952 Topps is the iconic post-war set. Also, certain collectibles are status symbols. The 1952 Topps Mantle is a status symbol; the 1951 Bowman is just a really nice baseball card.

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Posted By: barrysloate

Jim- if I remember correctly when that group of 1952 low number packs was found a Pafko was pulled out of one of them. Didn't that grade higher than an 8?

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Posted By: JimCrandell

Barry,

Last time I checked the Pafko I think was a pop 9 in psa 8 which tied it with the Runnels for lowest pop in set. I also thought there were none higher but I could be wrong on this.

Jim

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Posted By: barrysloate

That's kind of interesting regarding cards #1 and #2- a find of low number packs couldn't produce one mint example? Is it unusual for a card taken directly out of a pack not to grade mint?

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Posted By: MVSNYC

Barry- not surprising to me at all...first of all, these cards often can get "shifted" around in the packs, damaging corners slightly, then the centering has a big impact on "mint" grading...even though i don't collect them, i do understand that the 52 Topps had some major centering problems...

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Posted By: barrysloate

Fair enough. I guess a fifty year old unopened pack is still subject to a tiny bit of wear and tear.

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Posted By: Ted Zanidakis

I can only tell you of my collecting experience in Hillside, NJ in 1951 and 1952.

Of the 1951 Bowmans that I recovered from my youth, there were no Hi#s.
And, of course Mantle's Rookie card is the 1st card in the HI# Series (#253)
and Jackie Jensen's was adjacent (#254) on the 72-card sheet.

I cannot account why I didn't collect the Hi# cards, which would've been available
in the Fall of '51. One factor you must realize, in 1951 Mantle was having troubles
and not many of us were excited about his BB card.

My memory of the 1952 collecting season is clearer. The 1st series of the 1952
Bowmans (72 cards) were first out in the market (at least in my neighborhood).
Then the 1952 Topps were at the stores. These larger cards made such a huge
impression on us kids, that most of us stopped collecting the smaller Bowman cards.

Now, by the time the Hi# series of 1952 Topps was available in the Fall of '52,
Mantle had become an exciting player and we all wanted his card. And, when the
kids were opening up 5 cent packs and finding Mantle's, I recall the Fall of '52
being a very exciting time.....even for those who were not Yankees fans.

I leave you with this fact.....Mickey batted .311 in 1952....so, how did Topps know
this, since they numbered his card....311.....?

T-Rex TED

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Posted By: T206Collector

...I opened a 1987 Donruss pack in 1999 and sent the Maddux rookie into PSA just about immediately -- it came back an 8. It takes much more than being pulled from a pack to get a high grade.

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Posted By: barrysloate

Didn't one of the grading companies- it might have been Beckett- offer to remove cards from unopened packs on site and with protective gloves, and if they were in fact perfect agree to grade them an "11"? I had such a good laugh over that one- it's like the scene in "This is Spinal Tap" where Christopher Guest sets his amplifier to "11" (which is even higher than the maximum "10") so he can play his music extra loud.

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Posted By: Rich Klein

which had grades going to 11

Rich

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Posted By: Jeff Lichtman

Ted -- are you originally from New Jersey? I'm originally from Clark which is not more than a few minutes away from Hillside.

Paul -- I would have loved to have seen your face when that Maddux came back an 8.

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Posted By: barrysloate

Thanks Rich- no slight against Beckett intended. I was just mining it for the humor.

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Posted By: Ted Zanidakis

In another Thread, I noticed you acquired your BB cards in Linden. I have very fond
memories of the towns of Clark and Linden. My Aunt and Uncle owned a restaurant
on Wood Ave. And, they lived in Linden, so I spent a lot of my youth in those towns.
And, bought a lot of Bowmans and Topps cards there in the early 1950's. My older
cousin went to Linden High with Rosie Greer (NFL star).

A lot of great memories of the area, as I am sure you have.

TED Z

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Posted By: T206Collector

...because I had already been given a lesson on how hard it is to get a 9 or a 10, you know, back in the go-go 90's when all those Thomas, Sosa and McGwire cards were really going to be worth something.

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Posted By: Frank Evanov

Great story Ted. Thanks for sharing your memories. The thought of pulling a Mantle from a 1952 wax pack is mind boggling.

Frank

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Posted By: Jeff Lichtman

Frank, Ted: as a kid growing up in Jersey my greatest memory of plucking a 'great' card from a pack was either a) Hank Aaaron HR King card (1974) or b) a Washington National Leaguer card. Clearly, I was screwed badly by growing up in the wrong era.

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Posted By: Al C.risafulli

oops - wrong thread (duh).

-Al

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Posted By: JimB

Barry,
The Pafko out of that low number pack graded PSA 10. It sold for a ton of money.
JimB

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Posted By: barrysloate

Jim- I remember that now. What would it sell for today? The price of a house?

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Posted By: Paul

I'll make an effort to answer Richard's question about why the 52 Topps Mantle is more popular than the 51 Bowman. I think there's several factors.

First, as Barry said, the 52 Topps set is considered to be the classic post-war set. But I don't think that alone explains it. After all, that would mean Willie Mays' 52 Topps card should be worth more than his 51 Bowman rookie.

Second, and I think this is critical, throughout the 70s and 80s, 52 Topps high numbers were true glamour cards. They were very expensive (by the standards of the time) and were simply unavailable from most dealers. Few collectors even knew of true rarities like E107s, so 52 Topps high numbers were considered genuine rarities among those cards that ordinary people actually collected. Mantle was more popular than any other player in the high number series, including Mays. So his 52 Topps card was the king of this run of rarities.

Third, it was not until the late 1980s that Mantle's card was discovered to be a triple print. By this time, its status as the most important and most valuable post-war card had been fixed. (Though the 54 Bowman Ted Williams gave it a run for this title for awhile.)

Fourth, marketing. Once the 52 Mantle was established as the most desireable post-war card, dealers started to exaggerate its significance to boost sales. To this day, some dealers falsely call the card Mantle's rookie card. Even highly respected dealers and auction houses refer to it as Mantle's "Topps rookie card." I think this caused many novice collectors to either overlook the 51 Bowman Mantle entirely, or to think that there was something "wrong" with the card that disqualified it from being his rookie (just like many collectors find something "wrong" with 1947 Homogenized Bond cards and don't consider them rookies). Collectors carry with them what they learn when they are novices. So, as these collectors became more experienced, they still valued and desired the 52 Mantle, even though they eventually learned that he had a legitmiate earlier card.

Fifth, Mr. Mint's find of 52 Topps high numbers. Once the rarity of the 52 Topps high numbers was established, Alan Rosen found some mint unopened cases. This suddenly made ultra-high grade 52 Topps Mantles available. Others may disagree, but I think the influx of these cards actually made the price of ultra-high grade 52 Mantles go up. Until this "find," I don't think collectors strived to own the single finest 52 Topps Mantle, or one of the top ten. They satisfied themselves with owning a very nice one. After the "find," this became the top priority of many collectors, driving up the price of high grade 52 Mantles even further. The development of grading companies also contributed greatly to this phenomenon, but the existence of grading companies doesn't explain why the 52 Topps Mantle was singled out.

There may be other factors that I've overlooked, and some may disagree with the ones I've listed. But I've given it my best shot.

Paul

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Posted By: Ted Zanidakis

PAUL

Well said, and I would say between your very informative post and my post (1 PM) relating
my experience as a kid in 1951-1952 , we pretty well accounted for the popularity of the
1952 Topps Mantle over his 1951 Bowman card.

I was hoping you had mentioned the 1980 auction in Philly where 3 - 1952 Mantle cards
sold for a total of $10,000. This selling price at that time was unprecendented for just
any BB cards, that it received nationwide attention since it was depicted on the front
page of Philadelphia's major newspaper.

This event "jump-started" the hype on the '52T Manntle and 6 years later Al Rosen's big 52T
find in Boston raised the level of hype and the value of this Mantle card an order of magnitude.

I must correct you on one minor item....the 52T Mantle is a double-print (not a triple-prt)..

And, there are subtle front picture differences between these double-prints.
The earlier posted (PSA8) card is referred to as "Type II".

I will post a scan later today of mine which is referred to as "Type I".

Thanks for a great explanation.......TED Z

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Posted By: barrysloate

Paul- I agree, great analysis, but I believe it was only one case that was found. They were all cello packs, highs and semi-highs, and I vaguely remember it contained about 4000 cards. One ironic aspect of it is that the seller got somewhere around 100K for it, and he must have felt like the luckiest guy in the world, getting all that money for something that was sitting in his attic for more than 30 years. But if he knows what the case is worth today, he is probably sick to his stomach. I would say $5 million would be a conservative estimate of its current break value.

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Posted By: Ted Zanidakis

For those who are interested in the difference in the printing of the fronts of this double-printed card.

My Mantle is referred to as type I and when you compare it with the PSA-8 card (type II), shown in an
earlier post on this Thread, observe that the skin color of Mantle's right arm is clean. While the type II
card has a "glossy sheen" on it. Also, the yellow star name box in the type I card is clean, while the
type II card has a somewhat "ragged" name box.

The only difference on the back of these two cards is the stitching on the BB containing the card's #,
which is reversed when you compare type I vs. type II.

TED Z

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Posted By: Peter_Spaeth

I have never seen more than maybe a tiny resemblance between the 52T Mantle and the real Mantle.

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Posted By: Ted Zanidakis

Your photo of Mickey appears to be one when he was in his 30's....and "NYC aged".
The picture used by
Topps for his 1952 card is when he was only 19 years old....fresh from Oklahoma

T-Rex TED

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Posted By: barrysloate

Ted- of all the diagnostic points you cited the easiest way to tell a type 1 from a 2 is the stitching on the ball by his number "311". But here's a question- which is type 1, and which is type 2? Do you know which was printed first?

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Posted By: Paul

I remember very clearly an article in SCD many years ago concluding that the 52 Topps Mantle was a triple print, and it was listed that way in the Standard Catalog for awhile. But it has been listed as a double print for a long time now. I can't remember what the basis was for concluding it was a triple print. And since SCD has been listing it as a double print in their Standard Catalog, I think it's safe to say they no longer stand by their original analysis. So, I guess I'll join the consensus that it's just a double print.

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Posted By: barrysloate

Paul there are 97 different cards in the high number series #311-407. The first three are double printed, thus making 100 cards on a high number sheet. Does that make sense (since I have never seen a high number sheet)?

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Posted By: E, Daniel

I never really understood the type1/type2 thing with 52'topps mantles, and was wondering if there is any belief that the print run for one was higher than the other....? And have auction results reflected that?


thanks
daniel

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Posted By: Ted Zanidakis

BARRY

Let us start with 1952 Topps cards were all printed on 100-card sheets. And, there are 97 cards
in the Hi# Series......#311 - 407. Therefore, Topps had to double-print three cards. They chose
Mickey Mantle (#311), Jackie Robinson (#312) and Bobby Thomson (#313). These 3 were perfect
choices. The first two were very popular by late 1952 and Thomson was the hero of the 1951 play-
off game with his famous HR.

Confirmation of these 3 being dbl-prints was evident in Al Rosen's 1952T find in 1986. There were
37 Mantle cards, and similar numbers of JRobby and Thomson. While there were just 17 complete
Hi# runs.

Now, for your question regarding Type I & Type II Mantle cards. They were printed simultaneously.
Apparently, one plate of the double printing plates differed from the other. This is not an unusual
occurence.

TED Z

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Posted By: barrysloate

As always Ted, right on target.

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Posted By: Paul

Barry, that makes perfect sense, as does Ted's explanation. Thanks. I just wish I remember why SCD once reported the cards as triple prints.

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Posted By: Ted Zanidakis

I looked at my SCD guides #1, 2 and 3 and I cannot find anywhere that they say Mantle was a triple-print.
Also, the 1981 Beckett (#3) guide had already listed that Mantle, JRobby and Thomson were double-prints.

TED Z

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Posted By: dan mckee

This nut case is why grading is a joke.