Ex-NFL lineman Evan Mathis selling prized Mickey Mantle baseball card
After retiring from the NFL a little more than a year ago, Evan Mathis decided to move closer to where he grew up in Alabama.
And to get the kind of house he and his wife wanted, Mathis needed to free up some money. And that meant the avid sports card collector would have to part with his prized possession: a 1952 Mickey Mantle baseball card.
“Just that image of the young Mickey Mantle, over the years it’s been a centerpiece of the hobby,” Mathis told The Associated Press by phone. “I guess it’s kind of like the Mona Lisa of the sports card world.”
Issued as part of its first set of baseball cards by Topps, the Mantle card is the marquee piece of a card-only spring collection by Heritage Auctions. It is one of six versions of the card to have been rated a Mint 9 by PSA, one of the leading sports memorabilia authenticators, with three others having earned a Mint 10 rating.
The card has been estimated by Heritage to be valued at $3.5 million. For comparison, the highest price paid for a card at auction was $3.12 million two years ago for a 1909 Honus Wagner card.
“It’s what I consider the new face of card collecting,” said Chris Ivy, Heritage’s director of sports auctions. “For decades it’s been the [Wagner card]. For postwar [World War II] cards and the baby-boomer generation and beyond, it really does come down to this ’52 Topps rookie Mickey Mantle card, which has kind of moved from just sports collecting to more of Americana.”
Ivy attributes the high value of the card Mathis is selling due to its centering, strong corners and print quality — a rare combination, considering “quality control wasn’t the top issue” for Topps in the 1950s.