NJ Man, Brother Find 5 Mickey Mantle Cards in Old Collection
gvw_ap_news
By Associated Press
Published 7 years ago on
August 1, 2018

Share

Most people who collect sports cards when they are kids usually end up storing them in boxes for years and years. That’s where they stay until something prompts the desire to go through them.
For a 76-year-old man from New Jersey who asked to be identified only by his first name, John, it was seeing an ad in a newspaper earlier this year for a 1952 Mickey Mantle card being sold by Heritage Auctions with an estimated value of $3.5 million .
At first, he was sure the listed price was an error.
“I told my daughter, ‘this is going to be interesting. Tomorrow’s New York Times, they’re going to print they had a typo and they had an extra zero in it,'” John told The Associated Press in a phone interview. “I really thought they had made a terrible mistake.”

A 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle graded a Mint 10 by PSA. (Imaged by Heritage Auctions)

Heritage Auctions Evaluates John’s Cards

When he didn’t see a correction the following day, he began looking through the collection he jointly owns with his older brother, Ed. And when he saw the card sold by former NFL lineman Evan Mathis went for $2.88 million, that’s when John decided to call Heritage to have them evaluate his cards.
As it turns out, their collection includes five Mantle Topps cards from 1952, similar to the one Mathis sold. However, that card was graded a Mint 9 by PSA, one of the leading sports memorabilia authenticators. The best in the brothers’ collection is a PSA 8.5 that has been valued at $1 million by Heritage and is part of its Summer Platinum Night Sports Auction that runs through Aug. 19.
John recalled he and his brother began collecting cards in 1951 when they were growing up in West Hartford, Connecticut. John was 9 years old at the time, and Ed was 12, and they each had separate collections that got merged at some point years later when they were being stored.
Their cards are from 1951 and 1952, and nothing after.
“For reasons unknown, we didn’t save anything after that, from 1953,” John said. “I guess my brother sort of outgrew it, and as the big brother stopped saving cards the little brother apparently did as well.”
There was a big attic in their house and John said a lot of things were stored there over the years after they were no longer being used, including his Cub scout uniform and his Army uniforms. At some point the cards went up there, too. That’s where they remained until his mother passed away in late 2006. Her house was sold and her belongings were divided between John and his brother, who lives in Massachusetts. The cards later ended up in John’s basement.

Fortunate Their Mother Kept Them

“We always knew we had the cards, but they were just in the attic,” John said. “We were fortunate our mother stayed and lived in the house until she was almost 102. Most people would have moved at some point, and in the move things like baseball cards and old school books would get thrown away. Ours just stayed there for 50 years.”

“Part of the anxiety is you don’t know how (to sell the cards). If you go to a dealer who is buying them, your best interest isn’t his primary one. With an auctioneer, the better you do, the better they do.” — John
At one point around 1980 by John’s estimate, he talked to a dealer and described what he had and without seeing the cards, the dealer offered him $8,000. However, it wasn’t a priority for him to do anything with them at the time.
Not until he saw the big price tag for Mathis’ card and reached out to Heritage.
And the brothers’ collection is already doing quite well. There were 26 cards sold in Heritage’s auction in July for a total of $384,000. That included a PSA 7.5 ($200,000) and a PSA 5 ($72,000) that both returned more than estimated.
The current auction has six cards from their collection, including the Mantle PSA 8.5, and their final two Mantle cards — a PSA 7 estimated at $100,000 and another PSA 5 estimated at $40,000 — will be part of an offering in the fall.
John credited his father, who was an avid collector of stamps, coins and postcards with pictures of bridges, for instilling the sense of preserving collections in him and his brother.
“We didn’t abuse them,” he said of the cards. “They were a collection. We watched how he did things and we did the same.”
Asked if he had any plans for his share of the money from the sale of the cards, John said he avoids thinking about that.
“It seems tempting fate to be planning too far in advance of what are you going to do, a counting-your-chickens syndrome,” he said.

DON'T MISS

23 for ’23: A Year in Photos

DON'T MISS

See How this Fresno roastery sends aid to Northern Thailand.

DON'T MISS

District Says Fresno Teachers Contract Proposal Would Bankrupt Budget Reserves by Year 3

DON'T MISS

Trump Vows to Ban Gaza Refugees, Expand Muslim Travel Ban If He Wins

DON'T MISS

The Supreme Court Orders Makers of Gun Parts to Comply with Rules on Ghost Guns

DON'T MISS

George W. Bush for Speaker? A Democratic Lawmaker Thinks It’s Possible

DON'T MISS

Former Navy IT Manager Gets Five Years for Hacking, ID Theft

DON'T MISS

Gunman Kills Two Swedes in Brussels, Prompting Terror Alert and Halt of Belgium-Sweden Soccer Match

DON'T MISS

Zakaria: The Best Response to Hamas Would Be to Keep the Saudi Deal Alive

DON'T MISS

Groundbreaking Human Brain Atlas Offers New Hope for Treating Neurological Disorders

UP NEXT

Former Fresno CC Coach Ed Madec Arrested for Allegedly Threatening to Kill Chancellor

UP NEXT

Bulldogs Get a Bye Week to Heal After Gutting Out Win at Utah State

UP NEXT

Bulldogs Add UCLA and Stanford to Future Home Football Schedule

UP NEXT

Can Spotlight on Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce Help NFL Draw More Gen Z, Female Fans?

UP NEXT

Can No. 24 Bulldogs Win Their 15th Straight Football Game on Saturday?

UP NEXT

Fresno State Took Wyoming ‘to the Woodshed’ Last Year. How Will No. 24 Bulldogs Fare Saturday?

UP NEXT

Bulldogs Rise to No. 24, Into Prime Time Network TV Slot This Week

UP NEXT

Rangers, Twins, Diamondbacks and Phillies Look to Advance Today in Playoffs

UP NEXT

SF Giants Start Search for Manager With Internal Candidates

UP NEXT

Unbeaten 49ers Turn Focus to Sunday Night Showdown vs. Cowboys

You May like

Trump Vows to Ban Gaza Refugees, Expand Muslim Travel Ban If He Wins

1 year ago

The Supreme Court Orders Makers of Gun Parts to Comply with Rules on Ghost Guns

1 year ago

George W. Bush for Speaker? A Democratic Lawmaker Thinks It’s Possible

1 year ago

Former Navy IT Manager Gets Five Years for Hacking, ID Theft

1 year ago

Gunman Kills Two Swedes in Brussels, Prompting Terror Alert and Halt of Belgium-Sweden Soccer Match

1 year ago

Zakaria: The Best Response to Hamas Would Be to Keep the Saudi Deal Alive

1 year ago

Groundbreaking Human Brain Atlas Offers New Hope for Treating Neurological Disorders

1 year ago

Newsom Signs Law to Slowly Raise Healthcare Minimum Wage to $25

1 year ago

Former Fresno CC Coach Ed Madec Arrested for Allegedly Threatening to Kill Chancellor

1 year ago

Jim Jordan’s Rapid Rise Cheered by Trump and Far Right. Could It Make Him Speaker?

1 year ago

HOT OFF THE PRESS

23 for ’23: A Year in Photos

1 year ago

1 year ago

Trump Vows to Ban Gaza Refugees, Expand Muslim Travel Ban If He Wins

1 year ago

The Supreme Court Orders Makers of Gun Parts to Comply with Rules on Ghost Guns

Photo of a hacker typing on a laptop

1 year ago

Former Navy IT Manager Gets Five Years for Hacking, ID Theft