I always loved the allure of the 1952 Mantle but I definitely don't want to pay thousands for it. I had a PSA 8 copy of the 1983 reprint card, and recently I picked up a PSA 9 copy.
When I looked at it next to my PSA 8 copy, something looked fishy. When I flipped them over to look at the back, they were clearly printed on different paper stock and they were printed 180 degrees off of each other.
On the front, the shade of blue is different, the thickness of the black border is different, and the quality of the image is lower.
The signatures on the front look different as well.
Are there known variations of this card, or is the PSA 9 a counterfeit?