Heritage Rosen Mantle - Greatest Card Ever Auctioned?

[nwfsteve]

I stuck my head in the cutout because why not? It’s a great card but I concur on the stain. 52 Mantles are all over the place here, upper priced but not even close to rare compared to a centered 1960 Fleer Jim Woodard FB of which there are zero here..

[MattyC]

Originally Posted by nwfsteve

I stuck my head in the cutout because why not? It’s a great card but I concur on the stain. 52 Mantles are all over the place here, upper priced but not even close to rare compared to a centered 1960 Fleer Jim Woodard FB of which there are zero here..

Rather than equating all the 52 Mantles to a rarely centered copy of the 1960 Woodward, let's make it an apples to apples comparison: other than the SGC 9.5, and obviously excluding the tilted PSA 10, how many Mantles are there that are as centered as the SGC 9.5, even if they have creases or bent corners?

[G1911]

One of the big arguments for grading, besides that it can be used to make people money, has long been that it gives a buyer confidence, because it reveals flaws that may not be noticed without a professional look. Thus a NM-MT looking card may get a 3 or a 4 if lucky for a tiny wrinkle that is difficult to spot in a normal context. Grading is technical, not perfectly so because it is done by a man and not a machine program, but it is not based on eye appeal but the actual damage to the card and it’s state, not an eye glance test.

Interesting that now the narrative is the exact opposite, that the card is a 9.5 because it has great eye appeal and Mr. Mint said it was the best. Thus, it is implied, we should ignore that it obviously does not meet SGC’s published standards, both for centering and for the stain. Even though both of these flaws are obvious, the back centering at a one second glance.

It’s a great card in great condition for a 52 Mantle. Maybe it is the best one (it sure isn’t the best one because Mr. Mint, a man I have never before seen propped up as a source of honest integrity, said so). It will set a record. I’d love to have it and never will. Mantle investors can piggyback off it and the pump on Mantles will continue as it always has, most all Mantle holders will end up making money if they choose to sell some day. And the card does not meet SGC’s criteria for a 9.5.

[Lorewalker]

Again....an awesome card. Everyone in the hobby would be proud to own it and even more proud if they could afford it however this is another blatant example of how 3rd party grading is not so 3rd party when it comes to biases. Those biases seem to go both ways. Some may like to write it off as too many graders, fatigue in the grading room or just normal inconsistencies that might occur in a grading room.

I am 100% certain that had any of us submitted this amazing card we would not have gotten a 9.5 from SGC. Not picking on them because PSA does his BS all the time too. Just a fact of life--not all submitters are equal.

[Johnny630]

The letter takes this card to the next level, it’s unbelievable!!

[Deertick]

Originally Posted by G1911

(it sure isn’t the best one because Mr. Mint, a man I have never before seen propped up as a source of honest integrity, said so).

LOL. I'm trying to figure out if there was another Mr. Mint floating around that I hadn't met.

[cannonballsun]

I just checked where the card is at in the auction. It is now a new record for highest price ever - $6,720,000.00. It remains to be seen where the final price will end up. There are "only" 27 days left to this auction.
As the saying goes, records are made to be broken. I think we all expect that this card will also be surpassed. There are cards which we are aware of which will be record breakers, those cards just have to come up for auction (one day).

[Johnny630]

Bob C I have a question for you, what would the consignor's tax burden be on the card ??

Paid $50,000 in 1991

Sale in 2022

Let’s say Heritage Gives him Zero commissions so he gets the hammer price minus the buyer's premium or maybe he gets a negative 5%.

[soxinseven]

Originally Posted by Johnny630

Bob C I have a question for you, what would the consignor's tax burden be on the card ??

Paid $50,000 in 1991

Sale in 2022

Let’s say Heritage Gives him Zero commissions so he gets the hammer price minus the buyer's premium or maybe he gets a negative 5%.

I have no idea what the tax burden would be on the card but I'd be amazed if the consignor isn't getting 10/12 percent of the juice on this card.

[BobC]

Originally Posted by Johnny630

Bob C I have a question for you, what would the consignor's tax burden be on the card ??

Paid $50,000 in 1991

Sale in 2022

Let’s say Heritage Gives him Zero commissions so he gets the hammer price minus the buyer's premium or maybe he gets a negative 5%.

It is a little hard to say since the card hasn't sold yet, and we don't know what the final price will be. Here's a ballpark formula you can use to figure approximately what the seller may owe.


(Net Amount Seller Actually Receives From Heritage - $50,000) X 20% = Approximate Federal Income Tax Due


This assumes the seller is not a dealer, so the sale is treated as a Long-Term Capital Gain (LTCG) by the seller since he held the card for more than a year. And for federal income tax purposes, the maximum tax rate on a LTCG is currently at 20%. So if after the card sells, and Heritage deducts all it's commissions fees and so on, say they end up sending the seller a check for $10,000,000.


($10,000,000 - $50,000) X 20% = $1,990,000


Now remember, this is only for the supposed U.S. federal income tax on the sale. We don't even know if the seller is actually a U.S. citizen, and therefore subject to U.S. income tax on this sale to begin with. And if the seller is a U.S. citizen, we still don't know what state/city they live in as there could be additional state/local income taxes on this sale as well.

And speaking of taxes, depending on where the buyer lives and is having the card delivered to, there's also the possibility the buyer can end up paying sales tax for this purchase as well, on top of the actual hammer price plus the buyer's commission. So the final cost to the buyer for this card could end up being even more than some people realize.

Here's something to think about in regards to that T206 Wagner card that Golding just brokered a private sale of for $7.2M. How much would you like to bet the buyer in that private deal may have left that card in Goldin's hands, in their vault in Delaware? Delaware has no sales tax so leaving that card with Goldin could save the buyer a lot of money. The sales tax where I live is 8%, so in that case, if I had bought that card for $7.2M and then left it with Goldin, I would have saved $576,000 in sales tax. In the case of this Rosen Mantle card, if it does go for sale over $10M, the sales tax savings by having it sent to a vault where there are no state sales taxes could easily result in a saving of $800K or more to the buyer, depending on the buyer's home state and final selling price. And this is exactly why those companies that have set up vaults did so, to help attract sales and deals like this that they can score huge commissions on.

And depending on the state the buyer lives in, there could also be other, non-income taxes due as well by the seller/auction house. For example, Ohio has something known as the Commercial Activity Tax (CAT tax), which calls for all sellers to pay a tax of 2 mills (0.26%) on all gross sales made to buyers/consumers in the state of Ohio. So if the Rosen Mantle was sold to someone in Ohio for say $10M, knock off the first $1M and figure the CAT tax due Ohio as approximately $9,000,000 X 0.0026 = $23,400. And if Heritage already had reached $1M in gross sales to Ohioans and Ohio businesses for the calendar year, the CAT tax due on that $10M sale would most likely be for the full $26,000. I would assume that Heritage in their contracts has such additional potential taxes and costs coming out of the seller/consignor's pocket, in which case the seller at least gets a little bit more of a deduct for federal income tax purposes.