A highly rare PSA Mint 9 1951 Bowman Mickey Mantle will star at Heritage Auctions’ April 19-20 Spring Sports Card Catalog sale.
With an estimate in excess of $1m, it’s primed to become one of the most valuable baseball trading cards ever sold. This card achieved $220,000 in 2013, which gives a clear indication as to how much demand has increased for top end pieces.
Mickey Mantle appears on the two most valuable baseball cards of the 1950s: this 1951 example from Bowman and the other (better known) example issued by Topps in 1952.
Heritage acknowledges “an ultimate sales price in the neighborhood of one million dollars will stun most laymen…
“[But] There are very few items in the full breadth of the collectibles marketplace as liquid as a high-grade Mantle rookie, and likewise very few with such a protracted and unbroken upward trend.
“It is also worthy of note that the market whispers suggest a growing sentiment that the Bowman is undervalued relative to the earliest Topps Mantle, which trades in the multi-millions at this Mint 9 elevation.”
The record for any trading card is $3.1m, set for a mint example of the legendary 1909-1911 T206 Honus Wagner in 2016.
The top price paid for a Mickey Mantle trading card is $1.1m, set for a PSA Mint 8.5 Topps 1952 example in 2016. However, bar an act of God, this Bowman has no chance of taking the title.
That’s because the same sale features a PSA Mint 9 Topps 1952 Mickey Mantle, valued at a world record shattering $3.5m.
