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There may be no one man more responsible for the modern baseball cards hobby than Mickey Mantle.
From even before he ever stepped foot on a Major League Baseball diamond, Mantle was christened as the second coming of Babe Ruth and the man who would make Joe DiMaggio expendable.
The heck of it is, Mantle darn near delivered on that huge promise others made on his behalf. If not for a freak accident (with a Joe D. assist) and some hard living, Mantle might well have played into his 40s and rewritten all the record books.
As it stands, Mantle put together one of the best peaks in the history of baseball and helped the New York Yankees build yet another dynasty in the middle of the twentieth century. And, even though he petered out in his mid 30s, Mantle still banged out more than 500 home runs and continues to draw consideration in every “best of” discussion you can imagine.
And, exactly at the moment that Mantle was beginning to make his mark on American culture, so was another baseball giant.
Topps produced their first set of baseball cards in 1951 and, while they missed out on young Mick that first time around, the 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle “rookie card” struck the right note with young collectors.
It was big and bold, just like Mantle, and it was on every kid’s want list.
Many of those youngsters returned to the hobby in the 1970s and 1980s as adults, and those Baby Boomers brought plenty of expendable income with them.
Setting out to collect the cards they missed out on in their youths, these now-grown men focused their collective efforts on grabbing that ’52 Topps Mantle. That tremendous demand, coupled with the card’s place in Topps’ high-number series, sent prices spiraling through the stratosphere and pulled along every other Mantle card with them.
Not long after that, the hobby exploded as collectors tried to hook into whatever might become the next Mickey Mantle rookie card.
Even today, with the hobby boom long behind us, Mantle cards are special and deserve a second or thousandth look.
You can check out the complete list of Mantle cards issued during his career via the PSA master checklist , but with well over 200 cards in the list, you could probably spend a lifetime trying to piece the whole thing together.
You don’t have to wait so long to get a good look at Mantle’s best cards, though.
Below, we run down every Mantle card (except for team cards) issued by the big two card companies — Bowman and Topps — during his playing career. It’s a cornucopia of celebrated cardboard, so sit back and enjoy the show.
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1951 Bowman Mickey Mantle (#253)
Although the 1952 Topps Mantle (below) gets most of the glory in mainstream coverage of the hobby, real collectors know the 1951 Bowman is Mantle’s true rookie card. This beauty will never surpass his first Topps card in terms of value or mystique, but it is a hobby icon in its own right.
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1952 Bowman Mickey Mantle (#101)
A fine follow-up to his debut cardboard, the 1952 Bowman Mantle features a vertical format and a facsimile version of The Mick’s famous signature. An underappreciated card in the firmament of Mantle cardboard.
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1952 Topps Mickey Mantle (#311)
This is it — the Mac Daddy of all modern baseball cards. Were it not for the existence of the T206 Honus Wagner card, this would likely be the most valuable hunk of cardboard ever produced. It’s already in a close race for title of “Most Famous” and may — may — be in the running for most overrated.
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1953 Bowman Hank Bauer/Yogi Berra/Mickey Mantle (#44)
Mantle barely squeezes into this rollicking photo with Yogi Berra and Hank Bauer, but don’t you get the feeling Bowman would have skipped the thing altogether had Mantle not been there?
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1953 Bowman Color Mickey Mantle (#59)
The 1953 Bowman set is often lauded for its big, beautiful full-color images and minimal card design, and it smacks a home run with this Mantle card. This one has it all — powerful follow-through, pinstripes, stadium background, blue sky. Cardboard perfection?
Darn close.
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1953 Topps Mickey Mantle (#82)
The 1953 Topps set is beloved by collectors but still has to play second fiddle to the 1952 Topps issue when it comes to value, especially in the case of Mantle. But this colorful card featuring the artwork of Gary Dvorak is a masterpiece in miniature that has been reproduced by Topps themselves multiple times.
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1954 Bowman Mickey Mantle (#65)
This card was the only Mantle card in town in 1954 since the youngster had signed to appear exclusively on Bowman pasteboards. The classic design and Mick’s big smile make up for that paucity of cardboard, though.
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1955 Bowman Mickey Mantle (#202)
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