The last public comp for one of the three PSA 10 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle cards was $275,000 in 2001. That is 25 years without any price discovery. This week, one of them reportedly sold for $50 million.
Over the last few months, the worst-kept secret among those in the collectibles industry was that one of the three PSA 10 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle cards was being shopped privately by the family of the recently deceased owner. This week, Patrick Bet David mentioned on his podcast that a deal had been struck to sell the card for $50 million. While that has not been verified, that was the number I have heard the sellers were asking, and despite the shocking price tag — more than 3x the previous record high for a publicly disclosed card sale — it seems quite plausible.
After all, that has long been the estimated value of the card, since at least 2022, when Sports Collectors Digest referenced a $50 million estimated value of the card in an article about one of the other owners of a PSA 10 copy of the card, Marshall Fogel. The following year, Fogel was cited as having previously turned down a $30 million offer for his copy.
Most discussions I've observed online about this sale have been in the context of how it represents the blazing hot card market writ large. Which is of course clearly true.
But to me, the far more interesting angle is what this tells us about how top tier assets are priced, and more importantly, the value provided by an illiquid market.
