Commerce Comet's 1952 Topps #311 meteoric rise in value
 

I was on the home stretch of school, to brain break, I began analyzing the prior 3 years of available sales trend data on the beloved 1952 Topps #311 Mickey Mantle card. I put that analysis away until recently. Wondering what if instead, I dropped out and invested my tuition dollars into a '52 Mantle. Analysis is attached. I could have bought 2 PSA 5.5s at $43K each, which has recently sold in that grade for $124K, each. That's an unrealized PROFIT of $162K. Anyone leave money on the table, or get in at the right time? What's the future hold for this card?!

Will always be a classic baseball card that endures the test of time. The prettiest copies regardless of grade will always be sought after by collectors.

In one year the PSA 10 Michael Jordan '86 Fleer went from $45K to $750K, if you want to talk unrealized profits. And PSA 10 base Kobe and LeBron 2012 Prizm cards went up tens of thousands of percents.

Ergo, the '52 Topps Mantle must still be a bargain. ;-)

I sold my 51 bowman mantle...at the worst possible time...shortly before the run up...I transferred the 20K+ gain to another board member!

I auctioned off a 1915 Sporting News Ruth RC in a Mastro auction about 20 yrs ago. It was graded personally by Derek Grady when he was with SGC and received a grade of 5.5. The nightmares continue.

Hi Brunswick,
Smartest move I ever made:
I paid $60K for my PSA 6 and $120K for my PSA 7. Those prices include BP. PSA had to retire my original PSA 7 SN and re holder with new SN due to a counterfeit example that was being circulated.
I am a big fan of eye appeal in all my cards. This iconic card will always continue to appreciate. This is not a 96 Kobe with 10 million Pop 10's There are millions of card investors who want a piece of the 52 Mantle and will always be looking to buy one. I turned down $185K for my 6 back in March.
Check out the PSA 8 in Memory Lane auction...... https://memorylaneinc.com/site/bids/...e?itemid=60642 Chart buster
BTW....I graduated from Babson in 1976 with a BS in Accounting. Tuition was $950 a semester. Unfortunately I had to commute and lost so much of the college experience. But I did get to drive "Thunder Road" every day. I worked at an insurance agency as a bookkeeper on the corner of Beaver and Washington that later became a Bertucci's.
Dumbest move I ever made:
Investing a great deal into stem cell biotech stock back in 2010 called
Athersys (symbol ATHX). Had I put that money into AMZN and AAPL I would be retired instead of celebrating my 43rd anniversary as a CPA. I guess we all do stupid things.
Best of luck to you
Russ

amazing cards.

Yes those two Mantles are beasts.

Agreed 2 Great Cards from Eye Appeal to Centering

I have no clue what the future holds for this Card.

I remember getting back into collecting roughly a year and a half before the Pandemic. I was looking at Prices on the 52 Mantle. I believe A's and 1's were going anywhere between 8-12 thousand. Not that I could afford that at that time, but I said to myself "Well even if it doubles in Value over the next decade, I should still be able to swing it by the time I'm in my early 40s, as long as I save properly"

It's gone insane, to the point where I question how much I want one. Sure I would love to eventually complete my Mantle run but now 1's are selling for 30K. I would have to sell a kidney to purchase that. And even then It poses the question of "Would I rather have the one Mantle or a Cobb, Gehrig, Ruth, Mathewson, and Mays?"

I understand the card is iconic, and a staple of the vintage hobby, but I don't understand it. Yes the high numbers are more rare, Yes it is Mickey Mantle but there are thousands of 1952 Mantles out there, hell I'd wager there is more than we think in the hands of older collectors who never got theirs graded. Just doesn't make sense to me.

$185k for your psa 6 52 mantle last March is a great offer considering a nice 52 mantle psa 6.5 just sold for $132k in heritage auctions last night.

I think it’s do for a 20-30% correction short term end of 23-25 especially in lower grades below 1-6. In the long run it’s only going up.

Yep, and it doesn't make any sense to me either. Why would anyone want to spend thirty thousand USD on a butt-ugly PSA 1 Mantle when you can buy a bunch of other cards with that money and watch them double over the years?

I also look at it this way, most people that have 30 grand to drop on a card, probably have a good amount of disposable income to the point where they can stretch going for a 2 or maybe a 3. I look at it this way, when I'm older and sitting on a house with no mortgage, that's when I'll probably look to buy a #311, unless the prices come down of course, which knowing Mantle if they do, it won't be by much.

Go after the 51' Bowman Mantle and Mays rookies instead. Way better investment, IMO.

If Im not mistaken prices have already come down 20-30% on these in most cases. Not sure they fall much farther but suppose they could? I think nows a great time to buy one personally. In the long run its only going up.

People have been saying that for years, I even say it from time to time. Than I look at VCP, the trend lines, and every passing auction, only to see the gap continue to grow. Nothing will stop this trend in my opinion...simply to much demand and to many people willing to pay up for one.

Problem is, I'm not really looking at it from an "investment" perspective. 51 Bowman is another issue I need, but it's not like I'm ever going to sell it after I buy it in the future, unless of course, it was for an upgrade of the same card.


I have noticed the 52 Bowman and 53 topps starting to flatline a bit, haven't paid much attention to the 52 topps because even a 25% drop still makes it out of my price range for now. thankfully collecting is a life long process.

"Thousands" implies that the card is actually a lot easier than what people are willing to pay, and I don't think that's the case. About 1700 PSA Mantles out there and many fewer SGC/BVG. And even if there are more raw copies in the hands of older collectors than expected, I doubt most would ever be up for sale.

At least not while those guys are still alive. And even then, I'd bet that every new Mantle that would hit the marketplace is replaced by someone who was finally able to get one (and puts it away in his own collection for good, as so many do with that card).

So I think the '52 T Mantle has been fairly accurately priced and valued, both pre and post pandemic bump

Russ, incredible pair. You still own both?

Yes I do.
I do not believe we will ever see the bubble that other collectors saw with more modern cards. For bubble comparison I'll look at my youngest card investment which is a 1996 Kobe Bryant Topps Number 138 PSA 10 that I paid $3,300 for after it peaked at $10K. I felt that was just about as low as it would go. That card is now in the $2,300 to $2,500 and I'm not sure where the bottom is. Sometimes you win and sometimes you lose. I will put it in my safe deposit box and wait it out.

I was not crazy about that card's eye appeal and it showed in the hammer price. All PSA 6-6.5-7's are not the same.

Nice PSA 5 up at REA, will it bring a new record high for a 5? Even average examples for the grade continue to sell at higher prices.

I am seeing some here say that prices have dropped but that's not entirely accurate. Pretty much everything has dropped - however - even at the "dropped" prices, they are still higher than pre-covid prices so they have actually raised. Look at the 86 Jordan for example. They were selling at 30K during the 2019 National in late July of that year. Then by December, they were selling at 40K. Even if they have "dropped" in price from those two or four 700K sales, that is still a MASSIVE win for those who bought low.

I feel like the Mantles graded in the 5, 6 & 7 range are very underpriced - especially when you compare at the last few sales in PSA. How does a PSA 1 sell for 25-30K but then something like a 6 sells only between 110 & maybe $130K.

There is currently a 6 for auction at Heritage. I think it will hit the 120K mark. I think the 6's will be at the 300K before 2030 comes around. Just my guess seeing the popularity in cards and the demand for the 52 Mantle. As someone mentioned, there will always be people with deep pockets who want one. Feels like almost every new sale outsells the previous one when color and centering are similar.

It's only going to continue to go up. It is THE hobby card. Everyone wants one. There isn't a single card that is more iconic in this hobby other than possibly the mostly unobtainable Honus Wagner, but even then I think the Mantle is still more iconic.

I recently paid $45k for one in an Authentic slab though, so perhaps I'm biased. But I obviously believe in the card to spend that much on an altered? copy of it (though upon close examination, I haven't found any hard evidence of it actually having been altered yet).


https://i.imgur.com/ek4Thao.jpg

Beautiful card! If resubmitted and it gets a grade the second time around, you are going to make out like a bandit.

Good luck if you decide to do exactly that.

I Left a Michael Jordan Rookie Card PSA 10 on the Table. It was back in 2018 and I had a Babe Ruth Photo as a Red Sox Type 1. Picked up for 18K.

Someone offered to trade for it straight up. I did not know much about Basketball cards and politely declined. I sold the Photo and made a small profit.

But even with the Jordan Rookies down from its peek of over $700K for one selling I would have made a nice profit.

Never Know but I missed on a Home Run

Thanks. Ya, I definitely want to have it looked at again. It was graded in 2011. It needs to be reslabbed regardless because the casing has been tampered with. It looks like someone previously tried to crack it out, probably for the same reason of getting a second opinion on it, but got cold feet and gave up because they didn't know how to do it properly and didn't want to damage it. I've examined it under blacklight and looked over every square millimeter with a jeweler's loupe. And I ran extremely high definition scans on it too. Nothing stands out as being altered. It has a very slight tilt to the top edge, but all edges show the same expected texture and chipping consistent with 1952 Topps cards. No sharp edges or anything like that. And it measures correctly. Nothing glows in blacklight. No recoloring that I've found yet either. I think it probably has a good chance of getting a grade if resubmitted.

Plus, I'd be famous over at the blowhard forums! They'd for sure post before and after photos of it along with all my personal info and add it to their tainted cards database and turn me over to the FBI lol.

During an "UP" market nobody ever says "I should have sold then"


Maybe psa 8 55.clementes and koufax for one week a few years back?


I just cant believe some of the prices paid, but they keep going up!

Snowman- Beautiful card. That being said, your top & bottom borders, left to right, appear to get smaller. Maybe it's just the scan.

Yes, they do. There's a slight tilt left to right. That's my best guess as to why it graded as 'Authentic'. But when you look at the edges themselves under mangification and examine the texture, color, level of fray, and chipping, they all look the same and are indistinguishable from my other 1952 Topps cards. If it was trimmed, my first guess would be the bottom edge, followed by the top edge. The problem is that the presence of a tilt alone does not necessarily mean that it has been trimmed. There is no shortage of these 1952 Topps cards out there with tilted or even flared edges straight from the pack.

Great looking card, anyway you look at it.

Would love to see which babe Ruth photo was in the mix.

Snowman,

Great looking card. Hits the eye splendidly. You won't ever regret having stepped up for one that you enjoy looking at every day.

I remember when I went way, way outside the VCP grid at the time to get mine; strangers literally posted that I was stupid. (Which is not surprising given the cesspool of incivility that is the internet most of the time, LOL. No idea why people take time out of their lives to slight what another guy buys for his personal collection.) Anyways I'd done my homework, shopped for a while, and cataloged how few examples had the centering I wanted to look at every day. So having seen quite a bunch of the slabbed examples, your AUTH example has eye appeal available in very few examples that don't cost a king's ransom.

Here's mine, pictured below. Actually wound up meeting the man who pulled it from a pack in 1952 (good side of the internet) and speaking with him at length one day with my son— he even allowed us to record the conversation for posterity. Was amazing to be able to trace a card that old to its pack and to the neighborhood and store where it was pulled. (Seeing how the man later drove it to PSA himself for slabbing, it also became a nice provenance chain proving no alterations in this era of rampant doctoring ;)

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...9f12657514.jpg

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...23ee06358a.jpg

That's one of the best-looking Mantles I've seen in any holder. Congrats on the find, and such a great story too. I've never been one to care what the masses think. Glad to see the same approach worked for you as well.

Two nice examples end tonight at REA, will be interesting to see where they finish at.

Curious on how your card ended up on display. Did you reach out to them and how long does it end up on display for?

There is currently a PSA 6 over at Heritage that's currently at 138K (with BP) with 7 days to go. Looks like its on its way to hit over 150K.

https://sports.ha.com/itm/baseball/1...umbnail-071515

It was on display for a couple of months as I recall. I was contacted by one of the exhibit curators; they had looked at a few higher grade examples but wanted one that was centered with a rich blue, if that could be found with no wrinkles or creases. A dealer they were consulting had shown them a picture of mine; I was thrilled to have been asked. I guess the curator quickly saw how tough the card was in terms of centering and tilt, lol.

As thanks for donating it, they made a custom bat for my son and when the exhibit was done, they also gave me a giant wall-sized canvas banner they had made for the exhibit; it showed a huge image of a 52T Mantle with characters from Star Wars beside it. I wound up cutting the Mantle out of the banner and today the massive 52T canvas Mantle hangs in my son's room. Good vibe.

Thanks for sharing that info. Pretty cool.

So I am guessing they are yours?

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That's awesome!

4 more ending tonight at Heritage including a PSA 6 up to $144k.

I think it slabbed as Auth because their edges seem to be too sharp and a bit under size.

PSA 6 finished at 150K (includes BP).

Overpaid. Couldn’t help myself.

Nice card for the grade. No such thing as overpaying for a 52T mantle.


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What are the odds the market continues into September for the nicest 1.5 you'll ever see?

I made two mistakes when it comes to 52 Topps Mantles. First, when I built up a really nice Mantle collection many years back, poor 52 Topps were in the $2000-3000 range. I really considered liquidating my collection and getting a mini-hoed together of 6-10 of them. That would have been fantastic to look through. Second, I once bought CSG 2 or 3 52 Topps Mantle. I can’t remember the specific grade. The card looked 100% legit, and the price was decent—in line with PSA 1s at the time. I got cold feet and asked the seller to cancel the sale and instead picked up another example in a SGC holder in a lower grade.

Now for a couple of things I don’t regret, buying my 51 Bowman and 52 Topps Mantles when I did and selling my second 52 Topps to buy a house—the price had tripled by then and, although I would have made substantially more if I’d held it, I’ve seen good returns on my home purchase.

That's a beautiful card. You didn't overpay IMO.

As close to a lock as there is in this hobby. This card goes for > $50k. Mark my words.