HOLY COW that is incredible. Please post (maybe separate thread) of how you got it and some of what the man said to you and your son.
Andrew, thank you! I realize I am very, very blessed as all three of my boys are growing into wonderful young men so far (fingers and toes crossed it continues).
As for the 1952 Mick, my late father had a chance to buy one that was centered and crease free back in 1988. We were at the beach in NC and travelled almost an hour to a card shop in Wilmington (that's how card crazy we were). It was the first time we had ever seen a Mantle rookie and it was like we had seen one of the seven wonders of the world or something.
The dealer had it priced at 1K but offered it to my Dad for $900. He would even take a check! My Mom urged Dad to buy it saying "You will never have a chance again." He just couldn't do it. We had never even spent $100 on a single card before......if only. Dad was a postal worker and Mom a nurse (blue collar all the way and now my wife is a teacher and I am a preacher haha) so to Dad that was way too much to spend for a card. Dad passed too early (54 years old) and Mom and I still talk about that card. The mantle rookie is just magic. Always will be. I remember buying the topps book in the picture I included. I can't believe Dad pulled the trigger for the book (thanks Mom) but we had never even seen most of those high number 52's. Happy collecting guys!
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Originally Posted by MattyC
Well said. Interestingly, my ten year old son and I just minutes ago got off a long call with a seventy-nine year old gentleman who pulled our 1952 Topps Mantle from its pack, way back in the Summer of '52, using money earned from his paper route. He bought the pack at a tobacco shop in Illinois.
My son and I were hanging on every word the original owner said, learning exactly where our Mantle card came from and how things were then, what his life was like, how into baseball he was, etc.
How many times do we collectors look at a card in our hands and wonder to ourselves about its journey through time to us? My son and I discussed how rare and special it is to trace a card's lineage like that. The discussion even ranged to the advent of TPG grading, and how the owner and his own son drove the card up to PSA some years ago for grading (I can also add both its owners find the arbitrary grading rules irksome LOL!).
Tangentially, a work colleague sent me a holiday gift this year; it is a coffee table book about the baseball HOF. My son and I cracked it open, and who was staring at us on the first page picture? The Mick. Of course we then went through all the other greats.
When I was a kid, my parents didn't teach me about Ruth or DiMaggio or Mantle or any of the others, and yet I still came to revere their cards— my cousins got me into collecting, and from there I just found the old greats. So one doesn't even necessarily need a parent to find their way to the classics. And one doesn't need to have seen them play either; that is what makes them legendary figures— that they existed in an often romanticized past world. They take on a more majestic character and mystique that way, actually.
I think music is an interesting analogy— someone can get into any modern artist, and if they are intellectually curious they will eventually delve into that artist's influences, roots, and samples, and journey onward from there.
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