This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 1/22/2010
Graded PSA 9 MINT. Presented for your consideration is a miraculous example of Mickey Mantle's popular and ever so challenging 1953 Bowman Color issue that has somehow surfived the last six decades in remarkably well-preserved MINT condition. Very accurately centered with just the slightest hint of an inclination for the bottom and left borders, with a thoroughly MINT if not borderline GEM MINT perimeter around a pristinely registered image of the talented youngster who, in the previous season, accomplished one of the most impressive feats in long and storied history of New York Yankee baseball; he successfully took the centerfield reigns from the great "Joltin' Joe" DiMaggio. In the years since, hundreds of talented ballplayers have been paid millions of dollars to perform under the bright lights of the Bronx, baseball's biggest stage, and countless rookies and even accomplished veterans have flat-out flopped. But not the kid from Commerce. Although "The Mick" certainly had his doubts after slumping for Kansas City in 1951, he responded to his father's famously harsh but motivational words--"I thought I raised a man. I see I raised a coward instead. You can come back to Oklahoma and work the mines with me"--and came back with a vengeance, hitting .361 with 11 knocks and 50 RBI over the next 40 games until he got the inevitable call back to the Bigs. In 1952, his first full season as DiMaggio's replacement, Mickey hit .311 and belted 23 HRs en route to yet another World Championship, earning an All-Star appearance along the way as well as 3rd place consideration in the AL MVP voting. No baseball card issue better captures Mantle's youthful innocence as he fought against and then finally embraced his ultimate destiny than the 1953 Bowman Color issue, offered here in MINT 9 condition from PSA. Only 19 like it and just one higher on record make this one of Mantle's top-ten toughest regular issues to encounter in top grades, and there's really no time better than the present to finally make this MINT Mantle your own. Haven't you waited long enough?