Selling 80% of your collection for ‘52 Mantle - would you?

[Touch'EmAll]

Although you may find a nice eye appeal for the grade 1.5, it is still only a 1.5.

How much do you like looking at nice cards (6-8 grades)? How much do you enjoy looking at 1.5's?

And how much enjoyment would you get from the 1.5 considering there are a lot out there of lower grade. How much enjoyment would you get from a different card knowing it is truly rare.

[Exhibitman]

Originally Posted by Touch'EmAll

Although you may find a nice eye appeal for the grade 1.5, it is still only a 1.5.

How much do you like looking at nice cards (6-8 grades)? How much do you enjoy looking at 1.5's?

And how much enjoyment would you get from the 1.5 considering there are a lot out there of lower grade. How much enjoyment would you get from a different card knowing it is truly rare.

Personally, I don't give a rat's ass about the numbers on slabs; I am just interested in the cards in the slabs.

I want to supplement my answer: i considered the OP's exact scenario several years ago and decided that I get more enjoyment from my Festival of Bric-a-Brac than I would from a Mantle sitting in my safe deposit box. Aa an investor, I would prefer the Mantle.

[Touch'EmAll]

That's the great thing about this hobby - collect what you like. Everybody doesn't have to collect the same things. I suppose some folks don't care about the grade on the slab. A lot of folks do. Not always, but the lower grade stuff tends to not look as nice as the higher grade stuff.

[philliesfan]

Selling every sport card and collectible of mine would not be close enough to buy a 52 Mantle.

[raulus]

But thinking about it from the flip side, if I had a 311 Mantle (any condition), would I sell it right now?

And for me, the answer is definitely yes. And I would use the proceeds to buy lots of other stuff that I really want instead.

[Belfast1933]

So many thoughtful and thought provoking feedback - thx to all!

Just to add some context, if the math works out, I would be keeping my top cards (Ruth, Gehrig, Aaron, Cobb, etc) but would have to sell everything else.

As one collector friend mentioned to me, I could them build the collection back up over the next 10 years.

Still quite undecided but I’ve never seriously even considered - until now… maybe!

Jeff

[Carter08]

Originally Posted by Belfast1933

So many thoughtful and thought provoking feedback - thx to all!

Just to add some context, if the math works out, I would be keeping my top cards (Ruth, Gehrig, Aaron, Cobb, etc) but would have to sell everything else.

As one collector friend mentioned to me, I could them build the collection back up over the next 10 years.

Still quite undecided but I’ve never seriously even considered - until now… maybe!

Jeff

I like the idea. Less is more sometimes.

[Bestdj777]

I pretty much only collect Mantle and Judge cards. Ten years ago, when I had roughly fifty Mickey Mantle cards, I tried to liquidate my collection to buy a 52 Topps. Couldn’t get a high enough offer for the cards to justify parting with them at that time. So, I just went ahead and bought two 52 Mantle cards (later sold one to buy a house). At that time in collecting, none of my cards had a ton of sentimental meaning and none were particularly rare, so it made sense to try to get one meaningful card.

In retrospect, I do really wish I’d gone ahead and parted with the cards then and just stocked up on 52 Mantles as I think I would have enjoyed having 5 or 6 of them over a bunch of lower value cards. Such is life.

Do what makes you happy. But think hard about whether that is one or many cards.

[Fred]

Yes, I am clueless... what's the cost for a Mantle as described in the original post?

[Casey2296]

No brainer if you get to keep your top 20% cards, that's a prudent move.

It's when you have to sell your precious to get that card that you have to have a long conversation with yourself. Is there a card like that for me?

That'd be the 1914 Texas Tommy Joe Jackson.