Word on the street: $12.6 million Mickey Mantle baseball card has Quincy roots

QUINCY – A mint-condition Mickey Mantle baseball card that sold for $12.6 million last weekend is reported to have Quincy roots dating back to the 1980s.

The rare Mantle card blasted into the record books as the most ever paid for sports memorabilia, eclipsing the record posted a few months ago: $9.3 million for the jersey worn by Diego Maradona when he scored the contentious “Hand of God” goal in soccer's 1986 World Cup.

"This is the best one in the world. It's almost impossible to find a card in this condition," said George Pepdjonovic, owner of George Pep's Baseball Cards on Quincy's Franklin Street.

The Mantle baseball card dates from 1952 and is widely regarded as one of just a handful of the baseball legend in near-perfect condition.

It was in 1986 that reports claim Alan "Mr. Mint" Rosen, a visible icon of the baseball card and sports memorabilia business, got a call from an acquaintance of Quincy's Ted Lodge, whose father had owned a card shop a generation before.

The man said Lodge, a truck driver, had found a collection of 1952 Topps cards in a home he inherited from his father. Rosen made the trip to Quincy and paid Lodge $125,000 – the equivalent of about $337,900 today – for a set of more than 5,000 cards, which included dozens featuring Mantle.

"I've heard this story since I was young and I've lived in Quincy since 1980," Pepdjonovic said. "As far as I know, Mr. Mint did make that purchase in Quincy in 1986. We always heard that there were 35 of the same card in that collection, but this one was the only one in such good condition."

Several years later, Rosen offloaded the card to an anonymous buyer, now known to be New Jersey waste management entrepreneur Anthony Giordano. He paid $50,000 for it at a New York City show in 1991 and held onto it privately until this summer.

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“As soon as it hit 10 million I just turned in. I couldn’t keep my eyes open anymore,” Giordano, 75, said Sunday morning. His sons monitored the auction for him. “They stayed up and called me this morning bright and early to tell me that it reached where it reached.”

The card scored a 9.5 grade from SGC, which specializes in the authentication and grading of trading cards. Pepdjonovic said there are only four cards in the world graded as highly.

"A 9.5 or a 10 (rating) is astronomical," he said. "They look at every spec of the card everywhere around. The edges, the corners, the front, the back. All of it."

The 1952 Mantle is not the player's rookie card, but is from his second year in the game and the first year Topps ever made baseball cards. Pepdjonovic said there are two others from the same year worth millions of dollars as well – a Willie Mays card and an Eddie Mathews rookie card – but that they're often overlooked in favor of Mantle's.

The card was one of dozens of sports collectibles up for auction last weekend. In all, the items raked in some $28 million, said Derek Grady, the executive vice president of sports auctions for Heritage Auctions.

“Sports collectibles are finally getting their due as an investment,” Grady said. “The best sports items are now starting to rival artwork, rare coins and rare artifacts as a great investment vehicle.”

The switch-hitting Mantle was a Triple Crown winner in 1956, a three-time American League MVP and a seven-time World Series champion. The Hall of Famer died in 1995.

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“Some people might say it’s just a baseball card. Who cares? It’s just a Picasso. It’s just a Rembrandt to other people. It’s a thing of art for some people,” said John Holden, a professor in sports management law at Oklahoma State and an amateur sports card collector.

Like pieces of art that have no intrinsic value, he said, when it comes to sports cards, the worth is in the eye of the beholder – or the  bank account of the potential bidder.

“The value," Holden said, "is whatever the market’s willing to support.”

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Reach Mary Whitfill at mwhitfill@patriotledger.com. 

This article originally appeared on The Patriot Ledger: $12.6 million Mickey Mantle baseball card has Quincy roots