Conundrum Looming

[uyu906]

Thanks to everyone who shared their opinion! I am glad to know that I am not alone with this problem. I am really starting to think about going the Authentic, or bad condition route. The reprints just seem out of place in my binders. Although, after I get a vintage version, I may then take out any frustrations left by drawing on the reprint!!!

[mrmopar]

As a Dodger collector, my only complaint is either when a huge star made a very brief appearance on the team or in the card of the Rose rookie, it also contains a Ken McMullen RC. it is not that i dislike Rose or any of the major stars, but it raises the price significantly for me. thankfully I got most of the key cards before prices steadily rose. I am missing a 50B Robinson and most of the 52 High numbers and will probably never own them due to the cost. I also do not have the Rose rookie, which is probably the most frustrating hole in my collection.

I can't image a hatred for a player so deep that I would not want to collect a card of them. I mean, I might stay away from the really pricy copies or I might not expand the collection to include certain cards for budgetary reasons, but never because i just didn't like the subject.

[Steve D]

I kind-of feel that way about the LA Dodgers and Oakland Raiders of the 1970s. I grew up in San Diego, and was an absolute die-hard Padres and Chargers fan, as well as a "card-carrying" Dodgers and Raiders Hater! I absolutely could not stand anyone connected with either of those two teams.

Later, in the 1990s-2000s, as I had grown older, I actually collected team sets of all the Dodgers from 1958-1990, and Raiders from 1960-1990, and have completed all of them.....I still have them, along with all my Padres and Chargers team sets. I find that it just reminds me of an earlier time when I cared so much about my favorite teams, that I completely despised their biggest rivals (who normally kicked our butts! ). Now, I miss those days.

Steve

[Case12]

Originally Posted by uyu906

Thanks to everyone who shared their opinion! I am glad to know that I am not alone with this problem. I am really starting to think about going the Authentic, or bad condition route. The reprints just seem out of place in my binders. Although, after I get a vintage version, I may then take out any frustrations left by drawing on the reprint!!!

Bad condition is my vote. Fill the slot. Pay little. Have a sucky card of the sucky player to finish set.

[bb66]

Growing up in the mid-1960's in East Tenn. this guy was the favorite. Even though his career was winding down due to injuries. Everybody on my street loved him.We all tried trading for his cards.Cincinnati was our closest team until the south finally got the Braves in 1966.I had amassed 15-20 1966 Topps #50's at some point and then lost them all to housecleaning later.Even if you liked another team this guy held a special place to most kids I knew.

[jchcollins]

Dave, Bluejacket66 on YouTube and Stone Pony I believe here (Hi Dave, if you read...) is a Mantle collector and I know has said on YouTube there are certain cards he has not bought yet simply because he doesn't like the card and doesn't want to pay up for one ('55 Bowman, and '62 Topps, I believe).

The point being there is no right or wrong way to collect. You can consider your sets complete without him, or with a reprint, or with a beater version of the card.

Interesting discussion on collecting vs. being a fan. I'm a Cubs fan for 30+ years, so naturally I hate the St. Louis Cardinals. But I have found this is mostly only when I watch tv, not when I'm going over my collection. I started collecting cards as a kid before I became a Cubs fan, so in some strange way my hatred of the present day Cardinals does not affect how I feel about Stan Musial or Bob Gibson cards.

Is Mantle overrated / are his cards overpriced? Yes and no. People who don't understand the Mantle mystique by now likely never will. With the cards - in short, he was at the perfect apex of hobby and time. The baby boomers who took the card hobby from a geeky, hotel show underground thing in the 1970's to a mainstream, card shop-on-every-corner thing in the 1980's had one main baseball hero in common, and that was Mickey Mantle. So that is why him and his cards in comparison to others had a boom and a subsequent unique following ever since the early 1980's. Yes, there were better players, but Mantle had a mystique about him and New York and the 1950's that nobody else from that era really hit just right on the head like that.

[uyu906]

Hi John,

Thanks for your post. To play devil's advocate - If what you said about the Boomers creating the Mantle price premium is accurate (and I believe there is a lot of merit in what you said); what happens after all of the Baby Boom collectors pass on to the Great Ballpark in the Sky? Do Mantle prices go down and revert to prices equivalent to stars like Mays and Aaron? Or, do they stay at the same high levels due to the price premium becoming ingrained in the Hobby for 50 odd years??

Rich

Originally Posted by jchcollins

Dave, Bluejacket66 on YouTube and Stone Pony I believe here (Hi Dave, if you read...) is a Mantle collector and I know has said on YouTube there are certain cards he has not bought yet simply because he doesn't like the card and doesn't want to pay up for one ('55 Bowman, and '62 Topps, I believe).

The point being there is no right or wrong way to collect. You can consider your sets complete without him, or with a reprint, or with a beater version of the card.

Interesting discussion on collecting vs. being a fan. I'm a Cubs fan for 30+ years, so naturally I hate the St. Louis Cardinals. But I have found this is mostly only when I watch tv, not when I'm going over my collection. I started collecting cards as a kid before I became a Cubs fan, so in some strange way my hatred of the present day Cardinals does not affect how I feel about Stan Musial or Bob Gibson cards.

Is Mantle overrated / are his cards overpriced? Yes and no. People who don't understand the Mantle mystique by now likely never will. With the cards - in short, he was at the perfect apex of hobby and time. The baby boomers who took the card hobby from a geeky, hotel show underground thing in the 1970's to a mainstream, card shop-on-every-corner thing in the 1980's had one main baseball hero in common, and that was Mickey Mantle. So that is why him and his cards in comparison to others had a boom and a subsequent unique following ever since the early 1980's. Yes, there were better players, but Mantle had a mystique about him and New York and the 1950's that nobody else from that era really hit just right on the head like that.

[jchcollins]

Originally Posted by uyu906

Hi John,

Thanks for your post. To play devil's advocate - If what you said about the Boomers creating the Mantle price premium is accurate (and I believe there is a lot of merit in what you said); what happens after all of the Baby Boom collectors pass on to the Great Ballpark in the Sky? Do Mantle prices go down and revert to prices equivalent to stars like Mays and Aaron? Or, do they stay at the same high levels due to the price premium becoming ingrained in the Hobby for 50 odd years??

Rich

No. Once you are in the stratosphere I think you stay there. Have Ruth or DiMaggio prices gone down...ever? And in fairness even as Yankees, they don't have the same wide appeal that Mantle does. Mantle fans who saw him play passed down that love to their kids, many of whom collected in the 80's. I just don't see the hobby attitude around him ever changing substantially. My LCS dealer always keeps lower grade Mantle cards in the case just because fans who are not even really collectors come in, and he can always move them. People want to be able to say they own a Mantle card, even if it's beat up. The days of collectors who actually saw him play will end, of course, but I think that mystique is transferable. None of the marquee vintage players - Cobb, Ruth, Gehrig, DiMaggio, Mays, Williams, Aaron, Clemente, Koufax, etc. etc., et al. have ever really seen their card values go down, in the last 4 decades of this hobby anyway. The time may come where no collector who saw any of the dead guys play knows any better - but I believe he will still be regarded as special.

[steve B]

I've expressed this before, what makes a top collectible in any field isn't any of the things that are usually thought of, at least not on their own.

This hobby has a number of great examples, the 52 Mantle being one of them.
Is it "rare"? Not exactly. It's a double print, so as part of the 52 high numbers it's one of the three most common.
So why don't any of the other 52 high numbers even get close?

It's got all the other factors.

It's not common, but also not so rare that someone who wants one can't find one.
The subject is very popular.
There's even a great story, that the 52 high numbers are "rare" because the remainders were dumped in the harbor/river/ocean

And that really all it takes.
It doesn't hurt that the set it's from is a great looking set.
Or that his popularity is in NY, one of the larger cities.

It shares those things with some of the other very expensive collectibles at the top of their respective hobbies.
The Wagner T206 of course
The inverted "Jenny" airmail stamp
The "CIA invert stamp -- although less so, because it's newer and not a particularly good looking stamp.
The 1804 Silver dollar
And maybe the 1913 liberty nickel (although it IS rare, it also has the great story/mystery)