The Case of The Mysterious Mickey Mantle

Two of the exact same (but different) serial numbered Mickey Mantle autographs

The 1991 Score Series 2 Mickey Mantle autograph set is still highly sought after by collectors, while continuing to be shrouded in a bit of mystery. 1991 Score was so over produced (I consider it the epitome of the junk era) that people STILL buy up cases of this stuff to rip in search of these Mantles that are undoubtedly still floating around in packs waiting to be discovered.

Two and a half years ago, I received an email completely out of the blue from a complete stranger. This email would send me on a wild goose chase mystery that I’ve yet to solve.

In July of 2017, I received the following email (personal information ommitted – we’ll call him Bill):

Hi Brian,
My son has a 1991 Score Mickey Mantle baseball card #0007/2500. He went to ebay to get an approximate value on the card for purpose of insurance. He found a card on ebay (auction number 272746840176) selling for $1,599.00. The problem is that this card that is up for auction is EXACTLY the SAME card. #0007/2500. I don’t understand how there can be 2 exact same cards…..did Score do this or is the one for auction a fake (I was present when my son purchased and opened the card back in 1991). I hope you can give me some insight into this curious situation. I have included pictures of my son’s card to compare to the ones up for auction.

He attached two photos:

Ultimately, I DID find the eBay auction that he referenced, which was for the “same” card: a 1991 Score Mickey Mantle autograph, card 7 of 7 in the set, serial numbered #0007/2500. Exactly the same as the card above that he sent me photos of. Except that the one on eBay was graded (9/10) and slabbed by BGS (Beckett Grading Services). At this time (July 2017), this card was on ebay for $1599 (I did not take any screenshots or anything)

For anyone who doesn’t realize, #7 was Mantle’s jersey number, so it’s significant.

*Since then, as of December 13, 2019, this card is on eBay for $3,500 Buy it Now, with a Make Offer button. I don’t know if it’s the same seller as it was back in 2017 or not. I’ve reached out to the seller of this auction to see if I can get any more info.

**Since SINCE then, as of December 14, 2020, this card is now on eBay for…get this… $120,000.00!!!! I didn’t screenshot the seller username last time, but it’s the same seller. It didn’t sell a year ago and at some point this seller has increased the price to, well, a lot more. But Make Offer is enabled (and this tactic of setting the price extremely high is pretty common right now in order to drive up the offer).

Originally, these were the details I had uncovered in July 2017:

• The BGS0007 (which is what I’ll now refer to this graded card as) was graded and slabbed by BGS back in 2009.
• The seller of the July 2017 BGS0007 auction was not the original owner.
• The BGS0007 sold through Leland’s auction house March 17, 2017 for $438 (four months before that first ebay auction).
• It’s reasonable to assume, though I can’t be certain, that the seller of the BGS0007 through eBay in July 2017 was the buyer in the original Leland auction.

So what do we make of this?

It woudn’t be unreasonable to think that the Mantle that Bill sent me was a fake. However, this doesn’t make much sense. Why would someone create a fake of a serial numbered card? All it takes is for the actual serial numbered card to surface to discredit the fake, as this one did. In my correspondence with Bill, I became convinced that he was telling me the truth. I could see no reason for him to lie to me. It’s not like he was trying to sell the card to me or anything, he was just trying to make sense of the situation himself.

Bill said that he was with his son personally on the day that his young son (who is now grown and still owns the card) bought a fresh pack of 1991 Score with his birthday money and pulled this card.

My son was born in 1981. For his 10th birthday, his grandmother gave him $20.00. My son went to the local 5 & Dime and spent the $20.00 on packs of baseball cards. He brought the cards home and his mother was quite upset that he had “wasted” his money on stupid cards….until he opened one of the packs and found the signed Mickey Mantle card. 

Obviously, it’s also highly unlikely that the BGS0007 is a fake. Though not impossible.

Observations

Interestingly, you’ll notice that the ‘0007’ serial number print on each of these is different – they use two different fonts/lettering styles, though both appear to be hand numbered. In looking at other examples of other cards in this series, the lettering style of Bill’s 0007 appears to be more consistent with other cards in this series (look at the zeros and sevens in the other examples), which uses a thinner and more condensed stroke, whereas the BGS0007 is a much thicker stroke.

I’ve never held one of these cards in my hands, so I don’t know for sure if they are hand numbered, but they look too inconsistent to be machined or printed.

The Mystery Set

This 1991 Score Mantle set is a curious set that was produced and to this day is still shrouded in a bit of mystery. This set is actually (to my knowledge) the first “insert set”. In 1991, Score became the first company to issue, on a large scale basis, special insert cards in its regular packs of baseball cards. The cards chosen for that inaugural promotion were these seven cards commemorating the career of Yankees legend Mickey Mantle. No one knows for sure how many were made or how many were actually signed, though the cards themselves say there are “2500 Personally Autographed Cards”. There is a non-autographed version of this set, and the autographed version. The insert set itself is a set of 7 different cards, with the autographed versions numbered (apparently) to 2500. According to Robert Edward Auctions, only 2,943 of these cards were actually signed by Mantle, although this doesn’t make much sense with the serial number going to 2500. If this is the case, only 356 complete sets signed by Mantle could exist. By today’s standards, this is a ton, but back in 1991 this made them very rare (in proportion to the millions upon millions of packs that were circulated). 1991 Score was one of the most over produced issues ever, so there are probably still more Mantles floating around in unopened packs and cases.

Back in 2017, I discussed this mystery duplicate card with a few other collectors, including a guy who I consider to be basically a walking baseball card encyclopedia. He stated that it’s been theorized that the first 7 autographed cards (numbers 0001/2500 through 0007/2500) went to Score company executives and the last of each card (#2500/2500) went to Mantle himself. He also said that it’s possible that some of the “special” cards – #0001/2500, #0007/2500, #2500/2500, etc., could have been duplicated as some sort of special series (which could explain how there are two different #7 / #0007 cards). I don’t know why they would do this, but he seemed to think it was a possibility. I haven’t verified any of this in any way, but this is what this fellow old-timer collector told me. He was dealing in the industry back throughout the ’80s and ’90s.

Interestingly, I also came across an unnumbered proof set of these cards, apparently which had been given to famed collector and former Score partner Barry Halper, who was also a close friend of Mantle’s, and so was instrumental in getting Mantle to consent to the deal. The existence of this unnumbered proof set supports my dealer friend’s idea that other special issues could have been made. And since REA states that 2,943 cards were signed, that also supports the idea that there were other types of issues besides just the 2500 numbered ones. So it’s not unreasonable to think there may be some other types of proofs or special versions of these, but even so, why would they be numbered the same?

Backdoored?

(Amendment to original article – I wasn’t familiar with this back then, but am more so now) Another possibility is that the BGS0007 is actually a “backdoored” copy. Meaning, it’s a “backup” type of card that Score could have produced but was never meant to see the light of day. They may have produced backups of a few of the “special” cards – the #7s, 1st and last of the series, etc., just in case something strange happens in production or distribution and the original versions meant to be circulated have problems. Cards like this that end up finding their way onto the secondary market for whatever reason (i.e., maybe an employee pockets it and walks out the back door) are referred to as “backdoored” copies. We now know that throughout the ’90s (more mid-late ’90s to my knowledge) this happened on occasion, and we’ve even seen supposed 1/1 cards that are accounted for but then another copy all of a sudden shows up on eBay. So, we know it happens, even if rarely. This is a plausible explanation as well.

That’s it for now.

I’d love to get to the bottom of this some day. It’s this type of story that keeps me so intrigued about collecting sports cards. If anyone knows a former Score company executive or employee, or anyone else who might have more information about the mystery of these “duplicate” Card No. 7 / Serial numbered #0007 cards, I’d love to chat about these!