1952 Topps Mickey Mantle

1952 Topps Mickey Mantle: If the T-206 Honus Wagner is the Holy Grail of baseball cards, then perhaps the best comparison for the '52 Topps Mickey Mantle is the Hope Diamond. The '52 Mantle is the most famous piece of cardboard issued by a chewing gum company in the years after WWII.

While technically not his "rookie card," (it appeared in the 1951 Bowman set), it was his first Topps card. And while it is the first card in the super-scarce "high-number" series, it was actually double-printed. Despite this, the mystique that revolves around this card continues to grow, and copies in (literally) any condition regularly sell. A near-mint condition copy will set you back about $20,000, however copies in poor and good condition sell for a couple of thousand bucks. I myself personally witnessed a "PSA 1" sell for $2750.

In recent years many academic types have compared the values of the '52 Mantle with the Willie Mays card of the same set to accuse The Hobby of alleged racism. Their rationale is: since Mays put up better career numbers than Mantle, his cards should, in theory, be worth more. However what these "experts" fail to add to their equation is the fact that Mantle played his entire career for the same team, the New York Yankees, arguably the greatest franchise in the history of professional team sports. Mays began his career in New York, but left for San Francisco in the middle of his career. Mantle won more World Series championships than Mays. And probably the most important, Mantle's card was part of the high-number series. There were simply fewer copies of the Mantle produced than the Mays. That is why a '52 Mantle sells for five to eight times more than a '52 Mays.

A '52 Topps Mantle graded Gem Mint "10" by PSA (and not coincidentally owned by David Hall, the president of PSA's parent company) sold at auction in 1996 for $121,000. The first time ever a post-WWII card had sold for above six-figures.