Mantle’s Best Relics While On A Budget

During these hard economic times, many collectors find it difficult to break the boxes they want or pickup that single they’ve been waiting years to ad to their collection.  Just because the economy is a wreck doesn’t mean you can’t make great additions to your collection.  For example, lets look at Mickey Mantle.  Mantle is one of the most collected sports figures in the industry, and the prices of his cards reflect it very well.  A few years back a high grade 1952 Topps #311 Mantle sold for over $100,000.00, making it the first post war card to reach six figures at auction.  His relic cards are some of the most sought after in The Hobby.  Depending on the brand and/or serial number, Mantle relics rarely sell for less than $50.00.  Most of the time you’ed have to spend almost $100.00 for a decent relic.  But for those die hard Mantle fans finding themselves in a fiscal bind, the Topps Company might be your best friend right now.  Back in 2007, Topps included a Mantle relic inside each of their boxed baseball sets.  These would normally be found at retail outlets and wouldn’t cost all that much.  Luckily collectors have eBay and these Mantle relics can be found for little money.  A large portion of the time, these relics can be found for under $20.00.  Why are they so cheap?  For one, Topps produced a ton of them.  Since these boxed sets were made specifically for retail stores, i.e. Wal-Mart, Target, etc, at the time you could have found these almost everywhere.  Second, many of these cards don’t contain a piece of jersey.  The only way these relics are actual pieces of jersey would be if Mantle hopped in his time machine and traveled to the future to play one season with the Mariners.  Whats in the card?  A piece of dress shirt worn by Mantle fills that little #7 window.  A dress shirt worn by Mickey Mantle doesn’t compare in price to a Yankees jersey.  Thats why they are so cheap.  For a product like this, using dress shirt relics are really good because it allows collectors to obtain something worn by Mantle for a cheap price.  One thing I don’t like to see is when Topps uses dress shirts in products like Triple Threads.  When you pay almost $200.00 for a box, if I’m lucky to pull a Mantle relic I’d like it to be a piece of Yankee jersey.

 

 

Some of the shirts Mickey Mantle would wear look like something Rodney Dangerfield would have on in Caddyshack 🙂