1952 Topps Mickey Mantle Now Available at Dean's Cards

The 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle baseball card continues to be in more demand than any other player from the post-war vintage era -- and Dean's Cards now has a 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle PSA2 for sale. We don't get to see one of the most popular baseball cards in the hobby very often, so when we do, it's pretty exciting.

1952 Mickey Mantle PSA 2 now available at Dean's Cards.

Most people can name the most valuable post-war baseball card as the 1952 Topps #311 Mickey Mantle, but few realize that it was "double printed", which means that the printed sheets contained two Mantle cards and twice as many were printed when compared to normal cards.  (The first three cards of the 6th series were double prints.) Can you imagine what the value of Mickey's 1952 card would be if it were not a double print?

The back of the famous 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle card from Dean's Cards.

Simply put, the 1952 Topps Baseball Card Set is the most popular sports card set ever produced. The 1952 Topps set was the first mainstream set issued by the Topps Gum Company and far surpassed all earlier sets in size, quality and quantity. These “Giant Sized” cards set a new benchmark for the hobby.

The 1952 Topps Baseball Card set was the brainchild of Sy Berger - now known as “the father of modern baseball cards." The card market had been dominated by Bowman since 1948, when Bowman had the insight to sign the players to exclusive contracts to use their images. In 1950, Sy convinced the Shorin Brothers, his bosses and owners of the upstart Brooklyn-based gum company, that Topps could make an impact in the baseball card market.

Visit Dean's Cards for the best selction of 1952 Topps baseball cards.

The 1952 Topps Baseball Card set was the first mainstream set issued by the Topps Gum Company and far surpassed all earlier sets in size, quality and quantity. The giant sized cards symbolized America’s new postwar prosperity and became an instant hit with collectors and set a new benchmark for the hobby.

The upstart Brooklyn based Topps company carefully planned their attack on Bowman’s dominant position in the baseball card market. The 1952 Topps Baseball Cards were the first to be issued in six series.  Each series was carefully proportioned with a fairly equal number of stars and players from each team.  The 1952 Topps cards were 52% bigger in size than the 1952 Bowman cards and had 61% more cards in the set.


The 1952 Topps 6th series was distributed in such low numbers that it is the toughest and most expensive high number series in the history of collecting and the hardest set to complete. For the next decade, Topps tried to give away these cards at various promotions, until they finally gave up and dumped the remaining 1952 Topps cards into New York Harbor!  Just think, in 1960 someone could have purchased these cards from Topps for pennies on the dollar.

Dean’s Cards continues to offer the best selection of 1952 Topps baseball cards available online, and the cards continue to grow in popularity for collectors.

But for the budget collector, the very nice 1952 Topps Reprint set also is available at Dean’s Cards. The 1952 Topps Reprint Baseball Cards are an affordable way to buy a Complete Set or build a Team Set at an affordable price.

The 1951 Mickey Mantle Bowman is really his first rookie card-- and it is available here at Dean's Cards.

Although the 1951 Bowman Mickey Mantle is his official rookie card, the 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle card remains the most famous. And if you're interested in any Mickey Mantle cards or any other hard-to-find vintage cards, let Dean's Cards do the card hunting for you.

For serious Mickey Mantle collectors, please see our growing collection of Mickey Mantle baseball cards and magazines. 

Sports Collectors Digest Features Dean and 1953 Bowman Baseball Cards

Sports Collectors Digest featured Dean’s article about the unique 1953 Bowman baseball card set in its March 8, 2013 issue. The article, also available online, is titled, “Bowman bounces back,”and features Bowman’s “counter attack” to the groundbreaking 1952 Topps set.

The 1953 Bowman set that featured great photography, multi-player cards and “pure color” is still considered one of the most beautiful vintage baseball card sets -- yet it was not a money-maker for Bowman, which had to return to a black and white card set later in 1953.

Dean also produced a video on the 1953 Bowman baseball card set which shows off the beauty of the set and serves as a timeless reminder to a bygone vintage baseball card era.


The story behind the 1953 Bowman baseball card set makes the set even more important for sports card collectors. Bowman had been slowly evolving its bubble gum cards, but that came to a sudden end in the spring of 1952, when the Topps Company aggressively seized its opening and issued a competitive set of baseball cards. Bowman seemed caught off guard, as the company was shocked at how quickly the superior giant-sized 1952 Topps baseball cards snatched the majority of the baseball card market share in just a year’s time.

Bowman was now forced to create a better card. The 1953 set was Bowman’s direct response to the 1952 Topps surprise attack and Bowman spared no expense. The 1953 Bowman cards were much larger than their 1952 cards and roughly matched the size of the Topps cards.

1953 Bowman Mickey Mantle available at Dean's Cards.

When you review the 1953 Bowman cards, you quickly get overwhelmed with the wonderful, bold color photos of the players. And there is no writing on the front of the cards which makes the photography stand out even more.

Without names on the card fronts, it’s sometimes tough to determine who the player is in the photo. The 1953 Bowman set forces you to concentrate on the player’s faces more so than any other set. As you go through the set, you find yourself turning over most of the cards to verify the identity of the player.

The photos were taken during the 1952 season, when color photography was extremely rare due to the high expense of the process. The Philadelphia-based Bowman Gum Company had to act quickly to get all of the photos taken before the 1952 season ended, so the company chose a New York based photographer for the job. That's why almost all of the 1953 Bowman baseball cards were shot in the two classic stadiums that sat across the Harlem River from each other: Yankee Stadium and the Polo Grounds.

Yogi Berra, Hank Bauer and Mickey Mantle on this 1953 Bowman baseball card from Dean's Cards.

It is fun to look at the cards of the National League players and piece together a panoramic view of the uniquely shaped Polo Grounds. And cards for American League players feature views of Yankee Stadium that most are too young to remember.

1953 Bowman Warren Spahn with Polo Grounds in the background

You can learn more about the 1953 Bowman baseball card set, as well as other vintage card sets from 1948-1955, by purchasing Dean's book at Amazon.com: The Bubble Gum Card War: The Great Bowman & Topps Sets from 1948 to 1955.

Dean's vintage baseball card books available at Amazon.com.

If you are interested in purchasing the 1953 Bowman baseball card set or individual cards from the set, you can see the cards on the Dean's Cards website. You'll also find vintage baseball cards from every other era, as well, including the important baseball card collecting period of 1948-1959

And if you have vintage cards from 1869-1969 that you'd like to sell, please visit our "sell your baseball cards" page at Deans Cards for more information.

T-206 Honus Wagner Auction Article Features Dean Hanley

Dean and Dean's Cards were featured prominently in an article about the auction of a rare 1909 T-206 Honus Wagner card in excellent condition. The article appeared on February 26, 2013 in "Sports on Earth," a website that is part of MLB.com and USA Today. You can read the T-206 Honus Wagner article here.

Online article about T-206 Honus Wagner auction features Dean.

The Wagner card up for auction now is the Jumbo Wagner, named for its margins, which are wider than those found on the typical T-206 Wagner (printing and cutting standards were not as uniform then as they would later become). The wide margins protected the face of the card, keeping it in excellent condition. The card was graded as a "5" on a 1-to-10 condition scale by Professional Sports Authenticators, the independent company that provides industry-standard grades for collectibles.

The widely known Gretzky T-206 is an "8," the highest quality Wagner card in existence, though with a caveat: it was cut from a sheet and never inserted in a tobacco pack, allowing its corners to remain extra sharp. There is only one other T-206 Wagner "5" in the world, and only one "4." The Jumbo Wagner is a rarity among rarities.

Dean's Cards has a wide variety of authentic T-206 available on its website.

You can purchase the T-206 reprint set at Dean's Cards.com

You'll also find a beautiful 1909-11 T-206 Reprints Complete Set, known as "The Monster" on this page. Buying an authentic complete set of T-206 cards would cost millions, so this T-206 reprint set is an affordable option for collectors.

T-207 reprint set available at DeansCards.com.

Dean's Cards also offers another exclusive reprint set -- the 1912 T-207 reprint set, which we produced and reprinted in 2012 to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the set. The T207 baseball card set is a true hobby classic. The 200-card T207 set contains 13 players that are in Baseball’s Hall-of-Fame, including Walter Johnson, Tris Speaker, Frank Chance, John McGraw, Smokey Joe Wood and Joe Tinker. Two interesting T207 cards are Eddie Cicotte and Buck Weaver, who were members of the 1919 White Sox and banned from the game for life.

The T207 reprint set turned out to be quite an undertaking, and took us two years to complete!

And if you're interested in adding the original T-206 Honus Wagner card to your collection, you can place your bid here. But have your wallet ready -- bidding begins at $500,000!