52 Mantle sells for $12.6M! 3 3

[FoggyNelson]

I think I have one of these 52 mantles laying around somewhere😁😁🙃🙃

[PopKulture]

On 8/29/2022 at 2:58 PM, James J Johnson said:

Al had picked what he thought was the best one of the lot and put that one away for himself. But there were actually a full half dozen that looked to be sheer perfection. Now in 1986 the only card grading service that I can recall was AccuCard. Alan Hager had initiated two grading services several years prior to that, AccuGrade, for coins, and AccuCard for cards. He also appeared to have the lion's share of those slabbed cards that appeared for sale in the marketplace around the time of the 1952 Topps find. 

The major card grading services weren't yet operating, but going by the later establish norm for PSA graded cards, almost every Mantle in that find was 9 or 10 quality condition-wise, there really weren't any with the kind of very minor wear, a ding here or crimp there, that usually trun up in high grade finds. These cards looked to have never been circulated, the edges and corners perfect, just with varying degrees of manufacturing cut-serrations on the long edges. And of course, centering varied, most notably on the horizontal plane, from 25/75 to dead 50/50. 

The top to bottom centering usually was within 60/40 to 50/50, the top to bottom centering faring much better than the side-to-side centering margin of error.

There were about a dozen of them that the centering was very close dead centered or dead centered, say 53/47 to 50/50 when averaging out the top/bottom and the side/side centering. Of these 12, maybe half had a slight to moderate tilt to the portraiture, say 1 to 3% out of plumb, in either plane. 

Also, when taking the back of the card into consideration, which is also prone to centering issues, there was one card that Al deemed perfect; that is, in every way, and that is the card that he kept for himself (Mr. Mint, right?). But when considering how the best one stacks up against, the second, the third, the fourth, etc., best of the 6 or so best in the case find (those most perfectly centered and aligned), they were all so close in their level of perfection that I can't imagine being able to determine which of them was truly the best one unless you had the next best 5 to compare that one to, side-by-side. 

Mr Mint did designate one as the best and did keep it (at that time and for how long after I don't know), but unless it was that card, chosen by Mr Mint, the one who examined all of them from the find at the same sitting that sold for the 12 mil, it would be hard to determine which was the best of 6 or so that looked perfect, IMO, and were sold raw because PSA did not yet exist. . 

Thanks for taking the time to share these insightful summaries!  

[rexinnih]

I love the history on this kind of stuff. Never will own one but love reading about it. 

[Vibranium]

On 8/29/2022 at 3:07 AM, Djangology said:

My understanding is that all of the high grade Mantles out there are supposed to be from the find referenced in the article. That Mr. Mint character identified this one as the "finest" of the bunch in a letter to the buyer after he had sold it in that 1991 transaction. PSA's grades have the same sort of uncertainty as CGC's grades, particularly when it comes to vintage.

As an aside, there are/were detailed scans of the card on Heritage's site and I think SGC overgraded it. Modern cards do not receive that much leeway. It's in amazing condition and I have no reason to doubt it's the best one, but it has a number of flaws.

I submitted a bunch of 1950's last year to SGC. Mostly Mantle, Aaron, Mays, Clemente and Banks. Their inconsistency makes CGC and PSA graders look like grading gods. I wouldn't let SGC grade a 5th-grader's spelling test. I sold a 1953 SGC 1.5 Mantle for $1,950 afterwards when the market was still relatively hot. It appears that the 1952 12.6M sale is already having an effect on the 1953 asking prices. I know it's apples and oranges, but I find it interesting that most 1.5 cards look much better than most complete 1.5 comics.

[Aman619]

In the mr mint interview shot back in the 80s that’s up on heritage, he says he got a call about the cards and when he got there the seller brought them out in piles on a silver tray. I had always assumed Alan bought an upopened set,  it that the seller had already ravaged the unopened packs.

So, can anyone who knows the unopened pack market today guess if the cases would have been even more valuable if sold today and slabbed unopened packs, with each pack — conceivably — containing a mint 1952 Mantle?

[Aman619]

As an aside, back in the 80s i was buying 50s star cards.  The 52 Mantle was already very expensive.  I visited a store that had three of the mantle cards from the Find. They were beautiful… but I passed.  Even on a time payments plan.

but it all worked out for the best.  That store’s name was Fantazia.  

Good chance they were all trimmed or worse!  I also passed on a Tec 27 (had a choice of 3 copies!) but that was only 10K so I probably would have done okay.

[James J Johnson]

On 8/29/2022 at 4:32 PM, PopKulture said:

Thanks for taking the time to share these insightful summaries!  

You're very welcome. 

[James J Johnson]

On 8/29/2022 at 6:44 PM, Aman619 said:

As an aside, back in the 80s i was buying 50s star cards.  The 52 Mantle was already very expensive.  I visited a store that had three of the mantle cards from the Find. They were beautiful… but I passed.  Even on a time payments plan.

but it all worked out for the best.  That store’s name was Fantazia.  

Good chance they were all trimmed or worse!  I also passed on a Tec 27 (had a choice of 3 copies!) but that was only 10K so I probably would have done okay.

error

Edited August 30, 2022 by James J Johnson

[Larryw7]

Glad to know you didn't trim those cards.

[James J Johnson]

On 8/29/2022 at 7:15 PM, Larryw7 said:

Glad to know you didn't trim those cards.

[Larryw7]

I'm glad you're here. You're very knowledgeable and entertaining.

[James J Johnson]

On 8/29/2022 at 7:21 PM, Larryw7 said:

I'm glad you're here. You're very knowledgeable and entertaining.

I'm like Mr. October, only year-round. 

[James J Johnson]

On 8/29/2022 at 7:20 PM, Ba'al said:

Hi Perry! 

        

[pemart1966]

I'd much prefer the Wagner card over this Mantle card...

[Aman619]

On 8/29/2022 at 7:11 PM, James J Johnson said:

I seriously doubt that there would be any reason whatsoever to trim (or worse) 1952 Topps find cards. At that time, 1986, all of the find cards were 9/10 quality, dependent upon centering, touted as the best anyone had ever seen. There wouldn't have been defects to trim. Even if retailed at a modest markup, you probably could have bought all three for in the $7500 to $15,000, which would put you ahead of the game now by a minimum of $3,000,000 at the very least to as much as the sky's the limit (8 figures?). Like "KGB" said in Rounders, "Bad Judgement".   In fact, further compounding that tactical error, buying those Tec 27s, restored or not, probably would have put you ahead now an additional mil and likely more!  

tell yourself that!  you had them priced at 20K each.  

[James J Johnson]

On 8/29/2022 at 8:13 PM, Aman619 said:

tell yourself that!  you had them priced at 20K each.  

error

Edited August 30, 2022 by James J Johnson

[James J Johnson]

On 8/29/2022 at 7:25 PM, pemart1966 said:

I'd much prefer the Wagner card over this Mantle card...

With an estimated population of 75 existing cards, the Wagner is another card that really isn't as scarce as many others that sell for far, far less. 

[Aman619]

On 8/29/2022 at 9:31 PM, James J Johnson said:

I think your recollection may be faulty, as is typically the case when remembering 36 year old events, unless you truly have a photographic memory. 

Tell you what I know about the find cards. Mr. Mint was not a long-term inventory guy. He was a buy it and turn it quickly type, for a modest profit of course. Al sold a healthy portion of those Mantles and high number runs to a few dealers, middling them out to quickly double his money after paying off his backer for the deal. A great businessman, ergo a good number cruncher, and he had calculated what he would have to ask (wholesale) his buyers/dealers network to cover that goal. 

Wanting to recoup his cash quickly, Al unloaded a good portion of these cards quickly to only a select few dealers. As stated, the OCs were wholesaled by Al for $2000-$2200 and the well-centered ones for $2500. The typical asking price by Al's network of dealer-buyers was $2500 to $3000 for the OCs and $3000 to $5000 at the absolute most for the well-centered ones. 

Now maybe years later, someone may have been asking $20K for one, and of course, yes, that and more as time progressed. But fact is that if you saw those Mantles in someone's inventory within a week or so of the find, it was one of Al's original small inner-circle of buyers (dealers that would typically spend $50 -100K or more a shot with Al (big money in those days), and the ask was nowhere even near $20K. In fact, I pretty much know who bought how many and never heard of anyone asking more than $5000 for on. So, I wouldn't put much faith in your $20K recollection, especially that if the ask was $20K for a Mantle, then why was the ask only $10K for a Det 27? That makes no sense. Even in 1986 a Det 27 in decent condition was worth multiples more than a 1952 Mantle, or Al Rosen wouldn't have been wholesaling them for only $2000 to $2500. 

More food for thought. At the time, Al only shared with a few exactly how many Mantles (and other cards) were in that case. Once hobbyists started to get an inkling that there may actually be enough of them to diminish the value of the card, a flood of mint specimens suddenly appearing in the marketplace, confidence slightly waned in the market sustainability of the card, that is the ability of the market to absorb them without their losing value! There were those that had sunk considerable $$$ into them that were anxious to unload them once word got out. 

But again, to address your post, of all the original Mr. Mint network wholesale buyers, I never heard of anyone asking more than $5000 for any one of them, the week of the find, or even the year of the find. There were just too many of them suddenly available in the hobby to support asking more.

Such a long winded reply based on your faulty read on what I said. I never said what year I was in the store.  It definitely wasn’t within a month or whatever of the Find. I only said in the 80s —  probably the late 80s. The first time I heard of Hartsdale. 

[pemart1966]

On 8/29/2022 at 9:40 PM, James J Johnson said:

With an estimated population of 75 existing cards, the Wagner is another card that really isn't as scarce as many others that sell for far, far less. 

Demand trumps scarcity all day long...

[James J Johnson]

On 8/29/2022 at 11:07 PM, Aman619 said:

Such a long winded reply based on your faulty read on what I said. I never said what year I was in the store.  It definitely wasn’t within a month or whatever of the Find. I only said in the 80s —  probably the late 80s. The first time I heard of Hartsdale. 

double post

Edited August 30, 2022 by James J Johnson