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Mickey Mantle and Ted Williams Highlight 1950's Sports Card Collection

Childhood Collection and Memories from the 1950's

September 27, 2024

Mickey Mantle, Ted Williams, Y.A. Tittle, and Rocky Marciano highlight a collection of sports cards from the 1950's proudly purchased by Just Collect. These cards are from the original owner, and he recalls the days he gathered each card. A signed baseball from New York Yankees legends is in the collection, too. Wait until you see HOW the owner collected autographs in the 1950's.

An intriguing e-mail leads to a trip to Manhattan! A gentleman named Arnie used our form on the Just Collect site. The images Arnie provided were of baseball cards from the 1954 Bowman set with Mickey Mantle and Ted Williams. Another photo included a 1951 Topps Ringside card of Rocky Marciano. Arnie told us that he didn't want to give too much in the e-mail and hoped to intrigue us just enough so we could see his collection in-person. As you now, we often travel the world to purchase collections! Our owner and sports card treasure hunter, Leighton, made the trek from the Just Collect office in Summit, NJ to midtown Manhattan in search of cardboard gold.

THE "SHOOTER" COLLECTION

The two most valuable cards in the collection you can see in the first photo of our slide show below. From the 1954 Bowman baseball set, on the left is Mickey Mantle and on the right is Ted Williams. Bowman had the rights to print Mickey Mantle cards in both 1954 and 1955, and you won't find The Mick on a Topps card in these years. If you loved collecting Mantle, you were buying Bowman! Mantle was just 22 in 1954, and already made three all-star teams and won three World Series championships. You can see a young Mantle in his road gray New York Yankees jersey that has New York in block lettering. Having the away uniform on Mantle pairs nicely with the Ted Williams card as he's wearing the road gray Red Sox jersey with similar lettering for Boston. The image of Ted Williams should be from 1953, the year he hit a mindboggling .406. Williams was 35 in 1954, still far from wrapping up his Hall of Fame career; the Splendid Splinter went on to play six more seasons and made the all-star team each time. The 1954 Bowman baseball set in total consists of 224 cards, each 2.5" x 3.75" in size with a beautiful, colorful likeness on the front of each card along with a facsimile signature.

1950 Bowman football cards are shown in photo two. After not releasing a set in 1949, Bowman outdid themselves with this release. A total of 144 cards, measuring 2-1/16" x 2.5", a colorful design captures your eyes on the front of each 1950 Bowman card. In the second row are Joe Perry (#94 jersey), and two Y.A. Tittle rookie cards (#63 jersey). Look at the color of sky behind Tittle; these cards are stunning! Perry was the MVP in 1954, Tittle the MVP in 1963, and each were inducted into the Hall of Fame. In the third row is Mac Speedie (#58 jersey), a Hall of Famer who won the championship in 1950, and Otto Graham (#60 jersey) who is the best of the bunch! Graham is a three-time NFL Champion and three-time NFL MVP! Graham could run and throw, much like today's Quarterbacks; he held the record for career rushing touchdowns by a QB until 2016! The top row in photo two are a few cards from the 1951 Bowman football set. Similar in design, the 1951 set is a little bit larger coming in at 2-1/16" x 3-1/8" and a total of 144 cards. You can see the player name and team logo on the front on the 1951 set. On the top row in photo two is a pair of Sammy Baugh cards. Baugh is a Hall of Famer, a two-time NFL champion, a college National champion, and made six Pro Bowls. Next to Baugh is another Hall of Famer in Norm Van Brocklin. Van Brocklin is a two-time NFL champion, won the league MVP in 1960, and was a nine-time Pro Bowler!

Boxing cards are on deck! In photo three you can see nine cards from the 1951 Topps Ringside boxing set. SIX, yes six of these cards are of the legendary Rocky Marciano. In 49 fights, Marciano never lost; he retired a perfect 49-0. To date, Marciano is the only heavyweight champion to retire undefeated. You can see Marciano throwing a punch at the speed bag in his horizontal card. Below Marciano is a pair of Sugar Ray Robinson cards. Robinson amazingly boxed in 201 matches! A winner in 1,974 matches, Robinson fought as a lightweight, welterweight, middleweight, and light heavyweight categories and may be the best pound-for-pound fighter of all-time. Robinson's cards are vertical, and you can see he's got his dukes up, ready to go. The 1951 Topps Ringside set has 96 cards and are 2-1/16" x 2-15/16" featuring both boxers and wrestlers.

The fourth and fifth photos show quite the collection of 1952 Topps Look N' See cards. You can ... look and see ... (yes, we said it) just how many cards from this set Arnie collected - hundreds! Topps produced this diverse set with athletes such as Babe Ruth, as well as historical figures like George Washington, Paul Revere, and Albert Einstein. A total of 135 cards are in the set, each measuring 2-1/16" x 2-7/8" with a color image on the front.

A vintage signed baseball is in the sixth photo on the slideshow. Arnie said he hadn't opened the ball case in forty or fifty years! On the sweet spot of the ball is Casey Stengel. As a player, Stengel won two World Series with the New York Giants, but went on to become one of the greatest managers in baseball history. During his tenure as Manager of the New York Yankees, Stengel won seven World Series championships including a run of five in a row from 1949-1953. You just read about a kid that played Center Field for Stengel's teams: Mickey Mantle. Other signatures on the ball include baseball greats Joe DiMaggio, Whitey Ford, and even "the voice of the Yankees" in Mel Allen. You may remember Mel Allen hosting a show we loved to watch growing up: This Week in Baseball.

Unique autograph trick in the last photo! In our final photo of the slide show below, you can see envelopes that Arnie filled out when he was a kid. When Arnie told Leighton the story, Leighton got goose bumps. Arnie would fill out an envelope addressed to himself and would place a baseball card inside. He than handed the envelope to a player so that they could sign the card and mail it back to Arnie later on. We recall sending fan mail out to players in the 1980's, but what a unique thing to do back in the 1950's.

Here is the slide show of photos for this this wonderful collection:

Arnie still recalls where he purchased the packs of cards and the schoolyard where he would play games of FLIP. He put tape around the outside of cards to make them heavier and used those as his "shooter." Leighton has been buying and selling collections for over a quarter of a Century and has never heard such a method! Just holding the cards took Leighton back in time to the days of nickel wax packs, wearing a suit to baseball games, and you listened to Mel Allen broadcast the Yankee games on the radio.

THE APPRAISAL AND PURCHASE

Arnie originally sent us photos of a few key cards to appraise including the 1954 Bowman Mickey Mantle and Ted Williams cards along with one of the 1951 Topps Ringside Rocky Marciano cards. Our Vice-President, John, gave Arnie an appraisal and explained our process. Your local card shop is generally not well equipped to appraise or purchase vintage collections like this. The retail stores are focused on selling modern products and simply don't have the time or the knowledge to carefully evaluate vintage collections. This is where we are happy to help you. For raw (ungraded) cards without major stars or Hall of Famers, we offer between 50 to 55% of the retail value. If there are stars or Hall of Fame players in the collection of ungraded cards, we can then go up to 60%. One piece of professional card grading most are not aware of is the cost to grade a card. Did you know that the cost to grade a premium card such as a 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle rookie card could cost $2,499 or more? The grading cost for a Mickey Mantle rookie card could increase to $7,999! This fee is without shipping and insurance. PSA grading prices depend on the value of the card, and vintage cards are often valuable. For this reason, we offer a higher percentage when purchasing graded cards than we do the ungraded cards like in Arnie's case. Had Arnie paid for his cards to be professionally graded himself and sold through an auction house where auction fee is 20%, Arnie my have taken on a hefty, time-consuming project and run the risk of not being being fairly paid for his collection.

After scheduling an appointment for Leighton to travel into Manhattan and meet with Arnie, Leighton reviewed the remainder of the collection in-person. Leighton then made Arnie a fair offer that he accepted, and we paid Arnie on the spot with a company check. When you choose to sell your collection to Just Collect, we can pay you how you want to be paid. Either cash, check, or wire transfer! As you can hear Arnie say in the video, he was pleased with how professional the process is and the layout of our Just Collect website, and how much we appreciate the history of a collection.

Arnie was kind enough to let us record the entire process including our offer and payment. Here is a video for you to see the entire collection and a behind-the-scenes look at what is like working with Just Collect:

WE ARE ALWAYS BUYING

Just Collect is always buying vintage sports and non-sports cards from 1879 to 1979 as well as select modern cards. If you have a collection that you are considering selling, contact us today to discuss or get our industry-leading purchase offer. If you have a collection that you want appraised, please contact us and we would be happy to discuss your collection and help you understand the real cash value of your collection in the current marketplace. Check out the Just Collect Buy List.

We always offer a FREE APPRAISAL for your collection here at the Just Collect site. Just click here:

We offer may ways to evaluate your cards other than or using our website, too.

Travel to Us

If you can make the trip here like the son from my hometown did for this collection- we can make a deal at the office. We once met a father-son duo that drove eight hours from Virginia to meet us to sell a Michael Jordan rookie card stored in Tupperware since 1986 - great read here.

Come to convention

We keep a LIST of card shows we'll be attending. Come stop by the Just Collect table and chat.

Meet in-person

If you have a valuable collection and want us to come to you, we'll hop on the next plane out.

Meet in New York City

If you're near New York City and would like to meet in a public place, our owner, Leighton, would be happy to meet you; read all the information here.

SHIP your collection

If you choose to mail your cards for an appraisal, we will evaluate your cards for FREE still. If you choose not to sell the cards, we'll ship them back shipping fees paid by us! We can offer our FedEx account with 2-day shipping, fully insured, all covered by us. Simply contact the office to set up this option.

OUR BUYING PHILOSOPHY

We've run into a wide range of people and collections over the last 25 years. Although Just Collect is known for buying vintage sports cards and especially vintage baseball cards, we are also extremely interested in buying non-sports cards, too!

Every collection and every collector is different and we treat EVERY collection with the respect and attention that we show for our own collections. We understand that many have put their heart and souls into building their collections. So when you're ready to sell, we understand the feelings that you're going through and will work with you to help you reach a decision that is a WIN/WIN, because if you're not happy, we're not happy.