Looking at Mickey Mantle PSA Population
 

Thought this was interesting. Feel free to draw your own conclusions. But I did a simple tally of the listed population of Mantle Cards according to PSA (I excluded qualifiers).

A few things that jump out to me:
-The '69 White letter variation is exceedingly rare compared to other Mantle's. As of this moment, there are zero auctions on eBay.
-Pretty sure PSA didn't label '56 white/gray backs until very late in the game hence the seemingly low pop of '56 whites. While I agree a white back '56 is tougher than a gray back, I don't think the current ratio of white:gray in the population is an accurate reflection of the true population.
-'65s are much less plentiful than other '60s issues. It was from a later series so maybe that's it?
-Big drop off in population pre-'56.

What jumps out at you?

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...ed21d71d_b.jpg

To me, it's the fact that the population of 53 Topps is a good chunk higher than the 53 Bowman, yet the Topps is the more expensive card out of the two. Both Beautiful cards in my opinion.

I think the 51 Bowman, his true RC, is massively undervalued. It's population isn't that high, it's such a nice card, you would think the demand for it would be higher.

I agree.

The Bowman Mantle's get no collector love in relation to Topps.

The 53 Bowman is a beautiful card and it should be worth more than the Topps issue. Of course, I'm biased as I have a 53 Bowman set with a nice PSA 4 Mantle. Going back years, Bowmans usually caught the attention of more advanced collectors whereas pretty much everyone had something Topps related. On eBay graded 53 Bowman Mantles frequently appear, but anything PSA 7 or higher not so much.

As a reslab is so cheap and the vast price difference exists between white back and gray back 1956s, I believe there is truly a major difference in the population between the two that is borne out in the Pop Report. We have had threads about it in the past, and it appeared the Mantle card was SP'd on white back sheets. Looks like Willie Mays may have been as well.
https://www.net54baseball.com/showthread.php?t=254338

Robert, I'm curious as to why you didn't include the 1954B and 1955B cards in your graph.

The 54 and 55 are the Bowman. There were no Topps Mantle those years due to a deal Mantle had with Bowman.

The first series 1-100 the white backs and grey backs are printed in similar quantities with white being slightly more common. The second series cards are all very rare with a white back.

Yes, James, I am very well aware of this, but Robert said nothing in his OP about excluding any years or even comparing the Topps to Bowman PSA pops.

Apologies if that post came off a little brusque Val. That's a fair point that you bring up. I didn't think of that.

Apologies for any confusion I may have caused. I simply looked at what I consider "mainstream" Mantle's i.e. Topps and Bowman. Should've been more clear.

The discussion on '56s white vs gray got me thinking. Check this out. Percentage of total grades for each variation. '56 gray backs follow a typical bell curve with a few low grade, a few high grades, and most in the middle. That's typical of nearly any '50s Topps star card. The '56 white back is much more commonly found in low grade with nearly 25% of all '56 Topps White Back Mantle's receiving a '1' grade.

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...d5d26ce9_b.jpg

Makes total sense when you realize when both are in the PSA master set registry. In order to complete the set, you need one of each. So because there are way fewer white backs, people will grade any of them to complete their set, whereas most would only grade a VG or better gray back.

The 54B and 55B are included in the graph, not excluded. They are only marked as "1954" and "1955", rather than "1954B" or "1955B".

As an aside, and as the OP mentioned, the 1965 dip in population is an interesting thing to see in comparison to other years. It's also has great eye appeal for a 60's Mantle card.

The 1965 is card number 350, so distributed midway through the season. Many of the other ones were numbered either 50 or 150, signifying first or second series for his base cards.

Looking at your cool data, I decided to check out a couple of the Mantles you highlighted, 1965 and 1969 WL, and holy heck are those some blue chip cards!! I bought a PSA 6 1969 WL about two years ago and a 1965 PSA 6 last year (through an ebay 15% off coupon code), and if I were to sell those cards today at just an 'average' price (all other things being equal), I would walk away with a hefty profit. Yowza!!!

I see what you mean - thanks for cluing me in - sorry I didn't catch this earlier - my bad!

What I find interesting is there are plenty of 1956 cards out there yet prices for 56s are a lot higher than other years. Why is there more demand for a 56 Mantle than, for instance, the 58 or 59, when the supply is similar?

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56 is often looked at as his most aesthetically pleasing card. It's his triple crown year, its the last year of the full size cards. But that is a good point that the 56 pop is higher than every Mantle issued afterwards until '66.

And also, in the end we're looking at PSA populations, which isn't necessarily an indication of total cards available. Because of sell prices, '56 Mantle's are more likely to get graded in any grade than others would be.

That all makes sense. Other than his rookie cards, I guess his Triple Crown year is the next one you want. Back to back MVP year too!

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No worries, Val -- it took me a minute to figure it out myself after you pointed it out.

I was just surprised to see you in a Mickey Mantle thread. :)

Although I have pretty much been a pre-War collector for the last 20-25 years, I still have the Mantle cards, such as these, that I got when I was a kid.