Valuable baseball card collection with Mickey Mantle found in man’s basement

A valuable baseball card collection was found by a New Jersey man after he saw an ad featuring a highly-valued 1952 Mickey Mantle card.

My friend Les was born in 1946. He used to tell me about growing up in Pennsylvania in the 1950s. As a kid, he bought baseball cards at the local store because he liked the taste of the gum. When he told me this, all I could think was, ‘who likes baseball card gum?’ It’s basically a chalky stick. The flavor is bad and the texture is worse. I used to buy baseball cards and throw away the gum.

Because he bought the baseball cards just to get the gum, Les didn’t appreciate the cards. I was a big baseball fan in the 1980s, so the cards I collected as a kid were cherished. Les wasn’t a baseball fan. He had probably heard of the most popular players at the time, like Willie Mays and Mickey Mantle, but I’d be surprised if he even knew what teams they played on.

When Les bought baseball cards, he would eat the gum and attach the cards to his bike so his spokes would make a motorcycle sound. It didn’t matter if it was a Mickey Mantle card or a Bob Cerv card, they were all the same to him. Who knows how many Mickey Mantle cards he had in his hands as a kid?

Recently, a man from New Jersey named John saw a newspaper ad about a 1952 Mickey Mantle card with an estimated value of $3.5 million. The card was part of a collection being sold by Heritage Auctions. John from New Jersey and his brother collected cards in the early 1950s. He knew his cards were still in good condition. When he saw that the 1952 Mickey Mantle card was sold by former NFL player Evan Mathis for $2.88 million, you can imagine his excitement.

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To his basement he went. The brothers’ baseball cards had spent more than 50 years in their mother’s attic. When she passed away in 2006, her belongings were divided between them and the cards ended up in John’s basement. After seeing the price the 1952 Mantle card fetched, John did some investigating.

He pulled out his old baseball cards and found five Topps Mickey Mantle cards from 1952. They are similar to the $2.88 million card sold by Evan Mathis, but do not rate as high on the sports card grading scale. Still, they are quite valuable, with one of them being valued at $1 million. That card is one of six cards the brothers own that are part of an auction that ends after August 19. Two more Mantle cards will be up for auction in the fall.

As a kid, John and his brother watched how their father took great care with his collections of stamps, coins, and postcards. It rubbed off on the boys and their baseball card collection. They were very careful with the cards. Unlike my friend Les, they probably never considered putting them between the spokes on their bicycle and it paid off very well all these years later.

While baseball cards have really turned to more of a financial thing than a fun collecting item that anyone could afford over the last 20 years or so, the chance to find Mickey Mantle cards of such incredible value could make anyone wish they were still in the hobby!