A little more background on this set. I acquired the majority of it in a trade a couple or more years back. I don't remember if the partial set was posted, or if someone posted looking for a 1956 set and I responded, but I'm pretty confident I actually did this deal here on the board. If you were my partner in this trade and see it, please remind me. I checked my PMs to no avail.
At that time, the previous owner had the majority of 1965 set built in 8, 8.5 and 9s. It was missing I think 5 cards at the time, including the Mantle. I did a fair bit of price research on the missing cards, as well as the "trade down" value of all of the 8.5s and 9s that were included at that time - roughly about 25 cards if I recall. I figured out that if I was willing to downgrade those to 8s, I could pick up enough "profits" on that trade down to actually pay for the Mantle to complete the set.
The trade was my 1956 Topps Baseball set in all PSA 7s for the 1965 partial set and some cash. I was in the process of building a 1956 set of all PSA 8s at that time (which I finished not long ago and posted about here
https://www.net54baseball.com/showthread.php?t=287455 ),
and felt like for my long term collecting it was better to diversify. Part of that decision was also related to the length of time and effort it takes to build multi-hundred card all graded sets. I'm a patient collector, but the thought of trying to put together 598 cards from scratch did not appeal to me considering the other set building projects I had going on at that time, but trading out of 25 cards and picking my Mantle definitely was appealing. Even now, that trade was I think a literal win win for both of us, I know back then we were both pretty happy with the deal.
Looking at the VCPs today, the PSA 7 set of 1956s I gave up is probably worth about 5-10% more than the VCP of this PSA 8 set of 1965s. However, now I've got PSA 8 sets of both, and these are definitely my favorite sets of each decade. I love the pennant design on these, and with some strong rookies and all the Hall of Famers, I think this will continue to be a very popular set with collectors going forward.
It's been a nice couple of months of collecting for me, as I've completed 1956, 1954 and now 1965. All these projects have been in progress for years, and it's really satisfying to complete them. Continues to remind of me of why I collect and how much I enjoy the chase, but even more the art of these cards.
Anyway, wanted to share, hope you enjoy and for all the set collectors out there - HANG IN THERE!