A 1951 Mickey Mantle Type 1 photo, used in the production of his 1951 Bowman rookie card and 1953 Topps card, set a public auction record for any Type 1 photo, selling for $843,750 on Sunday night.
The price for the photo surpassed all recorded sales of his 1951 Bowman rookie card other than one, which sold for $3.19 million in 2022.
One of four original images known to exist, this copy comes from the collection of Yankees pitcher Jack Kramer, who retired at the end of the 1951 season. The photo was left at the Kramer family home after his death in 2005, when it narrowly avoided disaster during Hurricane Katrina — emerging unscathed due to the foresight of the owner, who placed it in a ziploc bag for protection against the Louisiana humidity.
The inclusion of Mantle’s No. 6 jersey in the photograph dates it to the prior half of Mantle’s rookie season, as he switched to his now-iconic No. 7 after his return from a minor-league stint in August 1951.
One of the other examples extant sold for $71,700 in July 2015 at Heritage, the last known public sale of a comparable copy. According to Khyber Oser, director of vintage memorabilia and photography at Goldin, one of these four 1951 Mantle images had previously topped $1 million privately, the only known million-dollar photo sale in history.
Other highlights from the auction included another 1951 Mantle, an original headshot photograph described as “one of 32, the only known complete set of official New York Yankee photographs of the 1951 World Series championship roster.” That image closed at $20,625.
A Type 1 image of Marilyn Monroe singing, "Happy Birthday" to President John F. Kennedy at Madison Square Garden in 1962 fetched $10,937.
Images of Paul McCartney and John Lennon ($512), Steve McQueen ($325), and Judy Garland ($2,062) were also sold in the auction.
Will Stern is a reporter and editor for cllct. You can follow him on X at @Will__Stern.