It’s insured for more than ten times what Mickey Mantle made for playing baseball from 1951-1968. Such is the current market for what is probably the second most recognizable baseball card ever made.
When the PSA 10 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle is removed from the bank vault where it lives and heads to a three-day engagement in Denver next month, it’ll arrive, fashionably, by armored car.
As we first reported last week, the card will be on display at History Center Colorado from July 16-18 as part of the Play Ball America! exhibit that runs all summer. It belongs to long-time collector Marshall Fogel, who lives in the Denver area and is loaning a good chunk of his collection for display.
One of just three ’52 Mantles graded PSA 10, the card is insured for $12 million. One of the six PSA 9 examples, a card owned by former NFL lineman and collector Evan Mathis, sold for $2.8 million earlier this year.
Fogel’s card, among the earliest graded by PSA, had originated with the famous 1980s Massachusetts find made by Alan “Mr. Mint” Rosen, who purchased hundreds of high-grade 1952 Topps cards –even the original Topps case they were stored in– from a man in Quincy, MA in 1986.
The going rate at the time was shocking–$2,000 to $3,000 for the best examples. At the time, few cards were worth that much. It’s safe to say the investment in that Mantle card Fogel made more than 30 years ago has paid off.
The card hasn’t been on display since a lone visit to the National Sports Collectors Convention in the 1990s.
Fogel appeared on Denver NBC affiliate KUSA on Tuesday to talk about the card:
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