For the collector who wants a nice card not stomped on and freshly graded that is not going to cost him a kidney. Tad off center, but pleasing to the eye. Mickey is suspiciously close to that electrical tower and not sure if those are clouds or really bad smog. Either way this has always been his true rookie and undervalued in comparison to the 1952 Topps monolith.

My father Ed Kubina began going to card shows for autographs in the mid to late 1970s. The first one I remember was at Hofstra University in Long Island, NY, where Mickey Mantle was signing. My father brought my entire Girl Scout troop, paying their way, and gave them pictures for Mickey Mantle to sign. He told them if Mr. Mantle asked them who to personalize it to, tell him to sign “To Ed”. After eighteen Girl Scouts and I went through the line, Mickey looked up at my Dad when he finally made it through and said, “Hi Ed”. Over the years we went to every card show Mickey signed at in the Northeast. These were our family vacations. My dad went to well over 100 shows through the years in his quest for the signatures of players like Ted Williams, Joe DiMaggio, Billy Martin, and Whitey Ford. We also went to Induction Weekend at Cooperstown every year beginning in the 1980s. This is where we met and got autographs from Roger Maris along with dozens of other retired players. After Mickey Mantle’s death, my dad took a trip with my brother to Commerce, Oklahoma, where Mickey Mantle was born, and took pictures. He even took a small piece off the side of the barn wall that Mantle used to practice hitting balls against when growing up. That was obsessive. - Deirdre Leary, November 2018