Little did 28-year old World War II veteran Sy Berger know when he sat down with Woody Gelman at the kitchen table of his Brooklyn apartment and designed the 1952 Topps set that it would one day become the standard-bearer for which every assemblage before or after it would be judged. Building a complete 1952 Topps set is kind of like climbing a mountain, with the hike becoming exponentially steeper as the set rating increases. And with the incredible boom in prices across the board over the past few years, particularly with the 1952 Topps Mantle, the elevation of every mountain has increased to where it has become unpassable for most collectors. According to the PSA Set Registry, the are 24 sets currently listed as complete, with many stuck at 99%, missing one or more of the three main components: #1 Pafko, 311 Mantle and 407 Mathews. In today's market, the grim reality for so many enterprising set-builders is that for all the effort and hard work, not to mention money, invested into the set, the acquisition of a 1952 Topps Mantle in matching grade now costs more than the other 99.75% of the collection combined. The conventional wisdom has always been to collect or snap up the low pops when you can because the star cards will always be there, but what happens when the star card that sold for $35,000 two years ago in a PSA 6 is now well in excess $100,000? And will it be long before the Mathews rookie card follows? It's kind of like 300-game winners in baseball; a few great pitchers over the years were fortunate enough to reach the magic plateau, but in today's game, it'll probably never happen again. The featured set is one of those fortunate ones, a fantastic assemblage that ranks #10 on the PSA Set Registry with a set rating of 7.54 and a stunning #311 Mantle graded PSA 7. Card #1 Pafko, 261 Mays and 407 Mathews are all PSA 7, and every card in the set save for one (#405 Miller PSA 5) is graded within the range of PSA 7 - PSA 8. Some of the very difficult PSA 8 cards include #3 Thompson, 7 Terwilliger, 12 Basgall, 17 Hegan, 30 Parnell, 31 Zernial, 50 Rickert, 51 Russell, 161 Byerly, 314 Campanella, 333 Reese and 392 Wilhelm. A link to the complete card by card breakdown of this set, including individual grades and populations, is available through our website. This collection is being offered two different ways; here as a complete set and as each card offered individually, and will be sold to whichever total (the set versus the sum of the individual lots) is higher. This gives prospective bidders the opportunity to examine each and every card in the collection through the use of our high quality scans.
LINK: 1952 Topps #10 Current Finest Set
:::CORRECTION::: There are two cards in this set that are different than the listing on the PSA Set Registry. Card #251 Carrasquel is listed on the Registry as PSA 8 but is actually PSA 5 in the set. Also, card #403 Miller is listed on the Registry as PSA 5 but is actually PSA 7 in the set.