Ranking Mantle's Hardest Cards To Find Centered

[brian1961]

It has slowly but steadily come to my understanding and experience that from the years 1952 to about 1969, only once in a great while would the Topps printing department "screw up" their centering of a Mickey Mantle card---AND GET IT DEAD CENTERED, AS THEY SHOULD HAVE IN THE FIRST PLACE!!!!!!!!!!! -Brian Powell

PS--Topps must have learned this modus operandi from the Bowman Gum Company, though I feel Bowman got Mick centered an itzy bit more often.

[GregC]

Agree on that list. I would also rank the 55 Bowman very high. That card is almost always OC T/B. I always assumed the card was meant to be registered more to the top until I finally saw it centered. I also still say that is not Mantle on the card...

The centering on all 50's Mantles makes it very difficult for the collector on a budget like myself to find really stellar eye appeal in low grade.

[MattyC]

Yes, but you always get my 'hand-me-down' Mantles as I upgrade-- and you get them for cost no matter how long ago I bought them. Might be the best deal in the hobby, bro!

And I might add your luck in finding Mantles with the best ratio of low grade to high eye appeal (we should create a stat/quotient for that, like OPS+) is crazy good. Your 54 in 3, 57 with the wrinkles, and RC in 4 are nuts. Although that 4 proves that at times you can spend some major coin. And when you aren't finding centered low grade Mantles, you are somehow finding the ONE dealer at the National who has grossly underpriced Mantles! A 52 Bowman in 5 for-- what was it again...750??? I still think he might have been into dudes and was trying to hit on you with that discount price!!!

[Gr8Beldini]

I don't have too much experience w/ early 50's stuff but I can't imagine too many issues being as tough as the '65 Topps, which I find to be much more difficult to find centered than the aforementioned '69 Topps.

[Paul S]

Originally Posted by Gr8Beldini

I don't have too much experience w/ early 50's stuff but I can't imagine too many issues being as tough as the '65 Topps, which I find to be much more difficult to find centered than the aforementioned '69 Topps.

I have - or have owned -- plenty of off-centered Mantles. For some reason most of my 65Ts are very well centered uniformly. I was living in CA at the time I pulled this one out of a pack. Maybe the cutting blades were properly aligned when whoever managed distribution arbitrarily decided send that particular batch to the west coast. Although a lot of time has passed and cards move around, maybe start looking for old time west coast sellers(?). In those days I was more interested in the players I might get than I was about centering issues.