1952 Mantle Topps card sells for $5.2 million

Staff Report|published: Thu 14th January, 16:59 2021

A rare mint-condition Mickey Mantle trading card sold for a record price recently. source: AP

It’s time to get mad at your grandparents for throwing out their baseball cards.

A rare mint-graded Mickey Mantle baseball card sold for $5.2 million on Thursday, according to PWCC Marketplace.

The price shattered the previous mark for the highest price paid for a card, which had been a one of a kind Mike Trout autographed card that sold for $3.9 million.

The Mantle card was bought by actor Rob Gough, who called it the Mona Lisa of trading cards. The Mantle card is the signature item in the 1952 Topps set, the bubble-gum company’s first year printing baseball cards. Previously, this exact card, graded a PSA 9 on a 1-10 scale, went for $2.8 million when former NFL lineman Evan Mathis sold it to an unknown buyer in 2018. It is believed that there are only six copies of a PSA 9 Mantle ’52 Topps in existence.

Considered THE card that ignited the card-collecting craze, there is a legendary story that thousands of cases of 1952 Topps cards were dumped in the ocean in 1960.