This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 6/16/2017
Graded NM/MT+ 8.5 by PSA. Mickey Mantle wasn't the greatest player who ever lived, not even of his time perhaps. He was a centerfielder of surprising swiftness, a switch-hitter of heart-stopping power, and he was given to spectacle: huge home runs, huge seasons (.353, 52 HRs, 130 RBIs to win the Triple Crown in 1956), one World Series after another with12 in his first 14 seasons ending in the Fall classic. Yet, for one reason or another, he never became Babe Ruth or Joe DiMaggio—or, arguably, even Willie Mays, his exact contemporary. But for generations of men, he's the guy, has been the guy, will be the guy. And what does that mean exactly? A woman beseeches Mantle, who survived beyond his baseball career as a kind of corporate greeter, to make an appearance, to surprise her husband. Mantle materializes at some cocktail party, introductions are made, and the husband weeps in the presence of such fantasy made flesh. It means that, exactly.It's easy to account, at least partly, for the durability and depth of his fame: He played on baseball's most famous team during the game's final dominant era. From Mantle's rookie season in 1951—the lead miner's son signed out of Commerce, Okla., for $1,100—to his injury-racked final year in 1968, baseball was still the preeminent game in the country. The featured keepsake is absolutely perfectly centered with a depth of the image that is scarcely encountered with a precision to the image and registration that acts much more like a painting than a printed ball card. Four utterly flawless endpoints frame this behemoth of a pasteboard to sheer perfection, allowing the untouched collectible full breadth of its grandiose landscape. The surface is of amazement, with a lacquer like coating of original gloss. The reverse is of equal proportion to the obverse with a well printed and defined biography set upon a sullen gray stock with green and red cartoons that are lifelike in their description of the famed slugger. A terrific memento and cardboard keepsake offered in superior and satisfying NM/MT+ condition bordering on MINT condition!