This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 8/19/2016
The 1953 Jacksonville Braves, a class A team in the South Atlantic League, posted an incredible 93-44 record and won the league championship. Leading the team was a lanky 19 year old kid from Mobile, Alabama that barely weighed in at 170 pounds but could hit the ball a country mile. At that time, Topps and Bowman were in an all-out war that saw both companies trying to secure exclusive contracts in order to gain an advantage over the other. When it was announced that baseball icon Mickey Mantle had inked a deal with Bowman for 1954, Topps pushed all their chips in on the kid from Alabama, who tore up the minors with a .362 batting average, 36 doubles, 14 triples, 22 home runs and 125 runs batted in over 137 games. Aside from the 1951 Bowman and 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle cards, the 1954 Topps rookie card of Henry Aaron stands as arguably the most highly-coveted pasteboard in the hobby. The featured card has been graded 96 MINT 9 by SGC and joins just 3 others at SGC's penultimate grading tier without a single specimen graded GEM MINT. The first thing that makes this incredible pasteboard standout compared to other highly-graded specimens is the extraordinary color that dominates the surface. Perfectly devoid of any stray print, the radiant backdrop supports a stunningly accurate image of the teen sensation who would go down in the annals of baseball history as "Hammerin' Hank." We feel that each of the four corners qualify for GEM MINT status, and perhaps it's only the pristine white border encasing the central image, which shades toward the right edge by a degree or two, that might be keeping this card from reaching a level yet to be be attained at SGC. While the centering does seem to fall within the guidelines of GEM MINT, we just don't see any other viable characteristic that disqualifies a top grade. The reverse is nearly as flawless, a clean canvas with deep red, green and black print that offers no cause to sway the advanced collector from having anything but a favorable opinion. There have been two 1954 Topps Hank Aaron rookie cards graded PSA 9 that have recently sold for over $192,000 and $228,000 respectively, and the staff at Mile High unanimously agrees that this example is the best of the three.