When you could never in a million lifetimes afford the real thing, you go for the next best option. Even this is just a pop. 12 in this grade.


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I can't even imagine how much the real thing in a PSA 10 would be....
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I think in the current hobby climate, it would fetch the highest price ever paid for a collectible (not counting fine art). Probably somewhere between $10-15 million, but with the influx of uber rich collectors driven by covid, bids of $20+ million would not surprise me.

BTW...here is a pic of a geniune 52 PSA 10 in case anyone is curious. Pop. 3. This one is owned by a guy in Denver IIRC.


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The owner of the Arizona Diamondbacks owns another one. Along with the McNall Wagner.

I think all of the psa10 Mantles came from the Mr Mint Kentucky find from years ago.
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I remember when I was collecting cards back in the early 70’s & one of 52 Mantle’s was selling for over a $100. I thought that was too much to pay for a baseball card.
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I’d rather pay more money for the card to held by the actual signee rather than somebody slapping a sticker on it. Just a personal preference.
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That Certified sticker auto #1/5(jersey #) will command more more than many on card autos. The Select to /10, another hooboy.
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Get it graded, it’ll bring in more.

It’s a nice card, I’m not downplaying the value of it. I’m just saying I prefer on card sigs.

Hypothetically if that card was selling for $5,000 and the on card sig for $10,000 I would be glad to pay the $10,000 and look look back.

Like I said it’s all personal preference.
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I hope whoever he sells them to makes more money than he does.

Now that Target is done selling cards for the foreseeable future.



I wonder how this affects the market. Obviously Walmart will be soon to follow. I don't think retail stores have a lot of blame beyond not taking notice of the issue sooner and implementing proper procedures. Walmart and Target can't be making very much money off of having them on their shelves. Panini and the rest of the manufacturers are probably having that "oh fuck" face right about now. Good for that. Distributors are going to lose a lot of money, at least in the short term. Good for that as well.

LCS owners have much to blame more than anyone wants to talk about. How many times have you gone into a local card shop and there they have sitting retail with high mark ups right next to hobby? $20 retail blasters marked up to $60 and beyond. Don't think for one second LCS owners don't have their little minions running around grabbing up whatever they can. I stay out of my LCS's other than for needed supplies because they all are like dealing with a slimy used car salesmen. Then they have their buddies clogging up all the fucking space so they can talk bullshit for hours on end. Usually you find these same teletubbies hanging around flea markets on the weekends trying to sluff their off shit wares to someone. Fuck em.

I think I have mentioned this to you before. Buy Raw cards of what you want off of ebay. Pay attention to auctions, pay attention to new listings, pay attention to actual prices of sold listings to learn values, not live listings. Sometimes there is a new listing with a BIN price that you will not be able to pass up. Don't buy the raw cards from the newest release off ebay. Wait till prices settle a bit for raw cards of whatever that product may be. Wait till the next product is released to start buying the previous release in other words. Don't buy packs, boxes, etc. off ebay unless it strictly for an investment to keep unopened, and play that safely with your ass from a reputable seller. If you want to buy graded, that is fine. Just do research on prior sales of similar cards to it.
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:-)
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I totally second this and would add...go to local shows, yes, there will be the typical guys who have their stuff priced out of the stratosphere, but usually there are some guys that will sell at ebay minus fees which is a pretty good savings. (and if they don't sometimes you can convince them to).
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Yep, many ways to collect a PC.

I prefer low # parallels. Low-Mid-High end products, don't matter. I even love something like 2018 Panini Football. Cheap as shit stuff. But clean look, great photography. All the way high end to stuff like Flawless. I like making as big of rainbows of Kelce as I can. Old HOF rookies. 2017 and beyond Phoenix Color Burst RC's.
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Retail is only the lower to mid tier products, and even in those the odds of pulling something good is significantly less than getting the same product in a hobby box.
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Hobby boxes are the only way to go.
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