I remember the conversation perhaps too vividly. It was 1988. I was 10 years old.
The night before was Blake Bendett’s Bar Mitzvah, and Mickey Mantle was paid to show up. Mantle had 4-inch by 6-inch, black-and-white photos and baseballs to sign. But there were, of course, people who wanted something unique.
My brother, Brian, then 12, got Mantle to sign a dollar bill. My father, Jeff, opted for a page in his rolodex. Both of them held on to those autographs and had the signatures authenticated and slabbed by PSA last year.
But the conversation I remember from the next morning was from my dad telling me how there was a father at that Bar Mitzvah who was considering running home and getting his 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle card signed.
That idea was extinguished rather quickly. Signing valuable cards was taboo. Having Mantle sign that card was essentially seen as defacing it, so it would be dumb to put a pen to a card that, at the time, was worth as much as $6,000.
The only people who risked getting that card signed, up until Mantle’s death in 1995, were people who thought it was cool to get the autograph and somehow felt fine about not selling it for top dollar.
Oh, how the tables have turned.
On Tuesday, a Mickey Mantle PSA 3 — whose last sale was $52,800 — sold for $793,000. Why? Because it had a perfect 10 auto on it.
You see, the Mantle 1952 Topps card has all the elements of scarcity. It was issued as a high number and kids had lost interest by the time the Mantle came out. Along with the usual attrition from being put in the spokes of a bicycle and moms throwing them out, Topps dumped a bunch of the high numbers into the ocean.
We live in a world of 1/1s, where it’s all about rarity. And the fact is that for every 100 of the 1952 Mantles that are unsigned, there is one that is signed.
RELATED STORIES:
Tuesday night, a card graded a 3 with an auto, sold at a 1,500% premium. It's not a surprise watching how this market has flipped.
The market for at least a signed Mantle over an unsigned one seemed to have flipped around 2007. The following year, a signed 1952 Topps Mantle PSA Authentic sold for $14,340, which was a 180% premium of an unsigned copy.
The market for signed Mantles then began a slow and steady climb. By 2018, the going rate for a signed 1952 Mantle versus an unsigned one was a 400% bump.
And then there was the auction that changed it all.
In 2022, Leland's offered a 1952 Mickey Mantle that was all the fears of the 1980s and 1990s recognized. Mantle had signed the card, but it was smudged. Even still, it sold at a 550% premium. Last year, a signed Mantle PSA 1 sold for $264,000 and a 1,000% premium was realized.
If only that father had driven home and gone against the advice of everyone at Blake Bendett's Bar Mitzvah.
Darren Rovell is the founder of cllct.com and one of the country's leading reporters on the collectibles market. He previously worked for ESPN, CNBC and The Action Network.