This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 3/26/2009
Graded PSA 10 GEM MINT. Proudly offered by Mile High is one of the top 3 baseball cards from not just the 1971 Topps issue but from the entire decade of the 1970s (and perhaps even the 1960s) as well. Most collectors know that the beautiful, black-bordered 1971 Topps Baseball issue is tough, sure, but what does that really mean? Precisely how tough is tough? For starters, consider that only 117 examples from the set have climbed the gilded grading ladder to the pinnacle position of GEM MINT 10. Impressive, sure, but now consider that these 117 are the fruit of precisely 149,578 submissions to PSA (to date). Only the 1959 Topps Baseball issue reports a larger submission pool at PSA, but not by much. To date, that set reports just over 155,000 submissions, with just 106 GEMS. Perhaps a better statistical comparison is the 1957 Topps issue, which reports 116 GEMS from just over 144,000 submissions. If you're still not convinced, then consider this: of the 117 GEMS from what is both universally celebrated and despised as one of The Topps Company's most condition sensitive sets of all time, the offered example of Ernie Banks joins just Aaron, Clemente, Kaline, Cepeda, Seaver, Palmer, and Marichal as the only 1971 Topps Hall of Famers in GEM MINT 10 condition. Finally, as most Banks collectors already know, of Ernie's 18 regular Topps issues spanning the years 1954 to 1971, only 10 of those years have yielded GEM MINT specimens on record at PSA. Subtract from this small population of 28 GEM MINT 10s the relatively irrelevant years of 1961, 1968, and 1969, and Banks collectors are left with just 10 GEM MINT 10 regular Topps issues extant. This is one them, a monumental "Mr. Cub" unlike anything we've ever seen. A positively pristine example of Ernie's impossible final issue, and easily Ernie's single toughest Topps issue to find in MINT or better condition. If you think we're overstating its case and would rather wait for a PSA 9 example to present itself, then have fun waiting, because only 3 MINT 9 examples exist at PSA from 800 submissions. Now that's tough!