This 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle PSA 8 just sold Privately for over $1.1M!

This week I shared the news that I brokered a deal and sold this increidble1952 Topps Mickey Mantle PSA 8 for a final sale price between $1,100,000 and $1,300,000. The exact dollar amount will remain private in respect to both the buyer and seller.

It's not every day you see these cards transact - in fact, on average they sell about once a year. On top of that, when you do see them transact, you don't usually get the full story on what transpired. I wanted to give an inside view into what it was like brokering a deal for this card, as well as the insights into what lead to the buyer investing north of $1.1M into the card.

There is a lot to unpack and reflect on when it comes to this specific deal. Not only just the deal itself, but even the fact that I am now in the position to execute a deal on a card of this size and significance.

The 1952 Topps Mantle is the Holy Grail of the Hobby. It’s the #1 Vintage Baseball Card in existence, and held the record for the all-time highest sale of a sports card when the 1952 Mickey Mantle SGC 9.5 sold at Heritage in 2022 for $12,600,000 until just recently when the Michael Jordan / Kobe Bryant Dual logoman auto card just etched past it last month for nearly $13,000,000.

When it comes to the best of the best, this card in high-grade is the ultimate grail for any vintage sports card collector or investor.

To put in perspective how rare it is to see this card in PSA 8 grade, here is the population count on the ‘52 Mantle at PSA:

Of the 1,656 graded examples of the ‘52 Mantle - there are only 35 Grade 8s.

There are 6 Grade 9s.

And of course there are the 3 well known, and incredibly iconic grade 10s.

That’s it.

So here’s how the deal went down:

Last Thursday, Fanatics Collect Premier Auction sold this exact 1952 Topps Mantle for $1,020,000.

On Friday evening, the buyer of the card, Ashsh Jai, owner of Legacy Cardz, posted to Facebook and revealed he was the winning bidder of the card and was looking to sell it.

His asking price? $1,350,000.

Ash and I have known each other for going on 3 years now. If you’ve been to any of the big card shows across the country, you’ve likely seen his table. If you’re on Facebook and in any of the selling groups, you likely have seen his posts before.

Truth be told - Ashsh was one of the first people in the sports card industry to encourage me to go into sports cards full time. He had seen very early on in dealing with me that I had a knack for the hobby and I had high potential to really grow. I am still thankful for that encouragement to this day.

As soon as I saw Ash’s post, I was amazed that a card of this significance was being offered for sale outside of the traditional auction house model. At the time of seeing the post, I was also unaware that the card had sold the day prior at public auction, however it did not matter. The fact was, his asking price at $1,350,000 was under the previous public comp in August of 2024 at Heritage, where a PSA 8 copy sold for $1,380,000. He was priced right.

After seeing the sales post, I immediately had a client in mind who I reached out to. I had just golfed with him that same afternoon, and we had discussed the growing excitement around how high end vintage sports cards are becoming meaningful alternative assets in portfolios.

After looking more into the Mantle and reaching out to a few close mentors of mine, I quickly learned that the Mantle had sold the night prior at Fanatics for just over $1M. This told me that Ash’s asking price likely had some room, and I got to work on reaching out to my client.

I shot him a text with a picture of the card and let him know that the Mantle had just sold at public auction the day prior, and the owner of the card was looking to flip it. I shared that I had a previous relationship with the seller, and that I felt the asking price was fair, especially for a card that only transacts publicly roughly ~1 time a year.

Opportunities to land 1952 Mantles in PSA 8 in the private market don’t come around often - and I wanted to make sure he was aware that if it was something he felt interested to learn more about, that I could give him that opportunity.

After sharing with him my initial thoughts and the opportunity to get the card -I received a quick text back from my client:

“Let’s talk tomorrow”.

The following morning I set a ZOOM call for my client and I to meet at 1:00pm. It was the morning of DAY 2 of the Ryder Cup, and my heart was still hurting from the beating that the Americans had taken the day before.

To better distract myself from the absolute clinic that the European golfers were putting on at Bethpage Black, I decided to put together a slide deck presentation as to why I felt this 1952 Mantle PSA 8 was a good buy for my client.

Every public sale of 1952 Mickey Mantle PSA 8 grades since 2017 | Credit Gordy Bonker, Bonkerscards

The AVG Annual sales price of PSA 8 copies dating back to 2017 | Gordy Bonker, @bonkerscards

About 2 months ago, I began working closer with this client to help him begin allocating a predetermined amount of capital to higher end sports cards as an alternative to diversify his portfolio.

He has been following my content for close to a year now, and was one of the first members to join the Bonkers Cards Club back in January of this year.

Although this card was slightly more than he initially wanted to invest into the category, I felt strongly that a unique opportunity like this ‘52 Mantle was worth at least exploring.

Here are a few of the charts I put together to help visualize the valuation of the 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle in PSA 8 grade:

The sports card market has evolved so much in the last 7 years. I wanted to give a view as to what the market looked like before the Covid / 2021 bubble, as well as what it looked like after and where we have gone since.

Just like other markets in the 2020-21 era, sports cards saw a scorching hot run-up.

Since then, much like some other alternative assets such as crypto and real estate, we have seen valuations trend higher, with certain cards even starting to return to their previous all-time highs.

To help showcase the valuation of the card, I also put together a chart that took the AVERAGE sales price of total sales of the card in each year. I felt that this helped illustrate the true shift in the market value of the card, as the all-time high sale of $2,112,000 in 2022 needed to be viewed alongside the rest of the sales from that time period to get a true understanding of where the market really was.

When the client and I hopped on our call at 1:00, I quickly ran him through this data and some insights into how the market has been continuing to evolve- especially in the higher end category.

After presenting him with the sales history of the card, the details on the seller, the asking price, and the value of the opportunity to acquire a card like this privately without having to go through the public auction house process- I asked him for his thoughts.

After just a few minutes of digesting the information, asking for my opinion, and formulating his own - the client had come to a decision that he was interested in making an offer to purchase the card.

Working together, him and I had came to a number that he felt comfortable with in total spending on the card. Any dollar amount under that total number, we agreed I would keep in return for brokering the deal on his behalf.

For the respect of the privacy of the buyer and Ash, I will not be sharing the exact $ figure that was shared with me that my client felt comfortable spending on the card.

Now it was time to deliver the offer, and see if it would be enough to close the deal.

At 1:47PM I called Ash to let him know that I had a strong offer, on behalf of a client to purchase the card.

I let him know that it was someone I fully trusted, had done business with before, and even spent the day with on the golf course just 24 hours prior.

Trust on both the buying and selling side in this business is everything. In all likelihood, if I did not have previous business dealings with both my client and Ash, this deal would have never happened. You need to have a lot of credibility in order to feel comfortable with someone on a deal worth 7 figures or better.

After delivering him the offer, Ash shared with me that there were other parties interested in acquiring the card since he made it available the night before, however the other interested buyers were mostly looking at trade to assist in acquiring the card.

My initial offer was declined - however a counter offer was made.

Again, in respect to the privacy of this deal for both sides, I will not be sharing any numbers that are not publicly available.

However Ash’s counter-offer was reasonable, and it indicated to me that we had a strong likelihood of closing this deal.

I hung up the phone and looked up at my TV. I winced at the scoreboard lit up in blue, and clicked the mute button on my remote- unable to listen to how giddy Nick Faldo was as he cheered on Tommy Fleetwood sinking another 20 foot putt.

I dialed up my client, and explained to him the situation. We were close. And I wanted to get one more approval to close the deal.

I explained that given where we were, in all likelihood I would have what I needed to close this deal if given the approval.

I could begin to hear the excitement in my client’s voice.

We we’re good to go.

“I’ll call you right back.”

At 2:04PM I called Ash back, and provided him with a counter offer that brought us within 1% of where we needed to be. Once we aligned with each other on logistics around delivery and payment of the card, I asked:

Do we have a deal?

A long pause on the phone carried on for what felt like an eternity.

Yes, Gordy - we have a deal.

In less than 24 hours since I had seen the card available for sale - I had closed a deal for a 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle for over 7 figures.

Me holding the Mickey before delivering to my client | Gordy Bonker, @bonkerscards

Flash forward to today and the deal is officially complete. I’ve taken some time to reflect on what it all means. (And lick my wounds from that “almost” comeback from the Ryder Cup.)

It’s hard to express the whirlwind that has been this year. Back in February, I landed what I dubbed “The Find of a Lifetime” buying and then later selling a 1952 Topps Master set for $300,000.

I remember thinking when I had closed that deal, I had probably closed the biggest deal of my life.

I was dead wrong.

I have learned to expect the unexpected in this business. I have also learned that my platform and my reputation in this industry has brought me further than I ever would have dreamed of when I started out on this journey a few years ago.

I’ve also been reflecting on what it means that a deal like this could even transpire just using social media and my own network of buyers and sellers.

The fact that a Facebook group was the distribution model that made this card publicly available to me is disruptive. It costs nothing to post a card in a Facebook group. Granted - there are only a handful of people in the industry that I would have felt comfortable enough to do a deal of this size off seeing their Facebook post - but nonetheless, that is where I first saw the card for sale.

I’ve learned how far building meaningful relationships can take you in this business. I fully recognize that if I hadn’t gotten to know my client who bought the card, gone out and played golf with him, got to learn more about his background and what he was looking for - there is a less likelihood he would have entrusted me in a deal like this.

I can’t express enough to him as he likely reads this story - how much that trust means to me.

Fortunately, building relationships is a strength that I’ve always had.

And I do love to golf.

I believe we are still in the early adoption phase of what the market for sports cards will evolve into. There is so much technology, and infrastructure, and investment that is coming into the space to better the collecting experience. There are new apps, and companies, and platforms, and software, and businesses being built everyday.

It’s important while the business of the hobby evolves, the hobby is also just that to many people as well - a hobby.

However there is another cohort marching into the hobby that also sees it as a diversification tool to their portfolio, and a real alternative asset.

Culturally significant, scarce, and desirable collectibles like sports cards or art will continue to grow in valuation for years to come. A sale like this helps support my case that there are more of you out there every day that believe this to be true.

My hope is that in sharing the background of this deal and this story with the hobby, there will be more collectors and investors that reach out to me that I can further assist in helping them build their collections and portfolios.

Will this be the deal of my lifetime? I don’t know. Maybe. Maybe not.

My gut is that there are more deals to come, cards to chase, people to meet, and stories to share. I am not going to limit myself in thinking my best and biggest deals are behind me already.

But I guess we will have to see to find out.

Now if you excuse me, I’m gonna go try to get out and play a quick 9.

Maybe today I’ll putt a little better than the Americans.

I recently recounted this full story, as well as dove deeper into the importance and history of the 1952 Topps Mantle on my lateset episode of the Gordy Bonker show, presented by the Sports Cards Nonsense YouTube channel.

You can watch that full episode here: