Five Quiz Show Questions On The 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle Baseball Card #311 (For Episode 311!)

You're listening to Cards to the Moon, a podcast about trading cards from both a collector and investor perspective. We hope you'll stick around for the ride as we take a deep dive into the state of the hobby, share some hot takes, hopefully some useful advice and fun stories along the way. Hey guys, welcome back to Cards to the Moon. My name is Clark from 5cardguys.com and you can also find me at 5 F-I-V-E, Card Guys on Instagram, Facebook and on YouTube primarily. This is episode 311 and it is another Friday episode and it will be a shorter episode today because I'm running solo again. But it's also a special episode because of the fact that this is number 311, which happens to be the number of one of the most iconic sports cards in the history of sports cards. If you haven't guessed already, yes it is the 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle baseball card. Now I can't take credit for the idea of dedicating episode 311 to the most famous card, number 311. For that, I want to shout out Josh at Inspired Sports Cards for giving me the idea. So what I thought I could do for this episode is just do a big quiz show segment all focused on the 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle. And you guys, the listeners, can play along with me and see how you do, alright? So class, I got 5 questions for you and here's question number 1 and I'll start off easy. While arguably the 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle baseball card is his most famous or most recognizable card of this Yankee great, it isn't considered his true rookie because he had a card in 1951. What was that card? Now I don't think I need to give you that much time for this one. It is of course the 1951 Bowman Mickey Mantle rookie card. Now if you compare the value of each card, doing a quick search in Card Ladder, I see that a PSA 9 of the 1951 Bowman card sold for $3.12 million back in December 2022. But we know the 1952 Topps always gets the major headlines. The SGC 9.5 of that card sold in August of 2022 for $12.6 million, if you guys remember that. Almost 4x the 1951 Bowman. Alright, question number 2. So the legend goes that in 1952 when Topps produced this high number series set, which includes the iconic Mantle card, they actually made a lot more. So when the unsold inventory piled up, it's rumored that Topps dumped cases of these cards into which river? Alright, the answer is the Hudson River in New York City. To be honest, I don't know if it's 100% true, but it sounds plausible to me. Alright, question number 3. Now whether the Hudson River story is true or not, there are very limited quantities of the 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle card available, and so even a PSA 1 graded card is pretty valuable. As of this recording, what did the last sale of a PSA 1 go for? And I'll give you a multiple choice for this one. Is it A. Around $25,000 B. Around $35,000 C. Around $50,000 or D. Around $75,000 If you answered B. Around $35,000, you would be correct. On August 17, it sold for $37,500. And I know not all PSA 1s are equal. IAPL has a lot to do with it, but if you look at the card of the last PSA 1 sale, it looks pretty good. There is a crease, but it did go for $37,500. I believe there was another PSA 1 that sold a week earlier for $28,000. So it does really depend on IAPL a lot of the times with the lower grades. The pop count for a PSA 1 is currently $369. Alright question number 4. On the other end of the grading scale, how many PSA 10s are there in existence? I think this is pretty easy for some of you. The answer is 3. Here's a bonus question. Who are the two owners of those three cards? Last time I checked, I believe collector Marshall Fogle owns one, and the other two is owned by Ken Kendrick, who is the owner of the Arizona Diamondbacks. Let's move on to question number 5. One more grading question. How many total cards of the 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle have been graded by the four major grading companies to date? That includes PSA of course, BGS, SGC, and CGC. Combine all those and what do you got? The answer, according to Card Ladder, is 2,927. So still under 3,000. The majority is of course with PSA at 2,076, 147 with Beckett, 696 with SGC, and only 8 with CGC. Alright, let me end off with one more bonus question. So if you flipped the card over, you'll see what Mickey Mantle's middle name is. What is his middle name? If you want a clue, it starts with a C. No, it's not Clark. His name, or middle name, is Charles. And yeah, I don't know how many of you guys read the back of baseball cards, but other info about Mickey Mantle you'll find on card number 311, 1952 Topps, is his birthday, which is October 20th, 1931, his hometown, which is Commerce, Oklahoma, his position, which is outfield, his height, he's 5'11", his weight, 185 pounds, and he bats right and left, so switch hitter, and he throws right. Okay, you know everything about Mickey Mantle now as a player, and hopefully you know a little more about this iconic card itself. Let me know how you guys did on this special quiz show edition, episode number 311. You can just DM us, at 5cardguys, or at CardsToTheMoon, all one word, on Instagram. And yeah, I'll include those links below in the show notes as well. Alright, hope you enjoyed this short episode, but we'll have a brand new full-length episode for you, as usual, on Tuesday. I'll talk to you then. Hey, thanks for listening to Cards To The Moon. We'd really appreciate you subscribing to our podcast, wherever you listen to your podcasts, and you can also connect with each of us on Instagram, at 5cardguys, or you can follow Hyung at Integrity Sports Cards, or John at TradeUAtRecess. You can also check us out at 5cardguys.com. Thanks again, and hope to connect soon!