Mickey Mantle Topps card joins exclusive million-dollar club
An iconic baseball card has officially joined the exclusive million-dollar club.
According to Beckett, a PSA 8.5 copy of the 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle just sold for $1,135,250 through Heritage Auctions, making it just the second baseball card to top $1M in value.
The first, of course, was the legendary T206 Honus Wagner card that drew national headlines in 2013. An anonymous buyer paid $2.1M for the card then, and just recently resold the card for a record $3.12M at a public auction in October.
The Topps Mantle card has not reached that level of prestige, but Beckett notes there’s a strong market that continues to build.
This is the latest in a long line of soaring prices for iconic vintage cards, particularly those in high grade. A pair of PSA 8 1952 Topps Mickey Mantles have topped $500,000 in the last 12 months. One in December 2015 sold for $525,800. In February, 2016, another one went for $501,900. Both of these sales were also handled by Heritage Auctions.
In April, Chris Ivy, the sports division’s director for Heritage Auction, told Forbes that Mantle’s Topps 1952 card had the full attention of sports collectors, even stating that “For baby boomers, the card has supplanted the [Honus] Wagner as the face of the hobby.”
That’s saying a lot, and there’s reportedly more to come.
The PSA 8.5 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle being sold by Heritage is one of three with that grade. There are also six PSA 9 and three PSA 10 copies, meaning we haven’t heard the last of this card or its growing value.
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Mark Townsend is a writer for Big League Stew on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at bigleaguestew@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!
