August 8, 2013: Sports & Americana Auction
This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 8/8/2013
This is a rare opportunity to own the most coveted baseball card of the postwar era: the 1951 Topps No. 311 Mickey Mantle. The baseball card is truly as legendary and iconic as the player it portrays. This specimen actually presents quite nicely despite its PSA 1 grade, a decently centered example with Good corners and acceptable overall appeal, a card so valuable and significant that it often flies in the face of conventional wisdom about the importance of condition. The No. 311 was the beginning card of Topps’ first attempt at producing a final printing of player cards late in the summer, an effort that prompted as much mythology and legend as anything the company would undertake over its historic reign atop the baseball card world. Printed in decidedly smaller quantities than the earlier series in 1952, the returns to the factory were so enormous that the company scrambled to dispose of the leftover inventory. High Series 1952 Topps would find their way to circus and carnival games as prizes, but still considerable volume remained. Ultimately, Topps’ vice president Sy Berger, would order that an estimated 400 cases be loaded onto a barge and hauled out to the middle of Long Island Sound. Such was the watery grave for thousands of No. 311 Mickey Mantle cards and his high-number cohorts. That took care of the supply question; Mickey Mantle did his part to address the question of demand.
1952 Topps Mickey Mantle No. 311 PSA 1
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