I watched this video more than once and every time it brought a tear to my eye. Perhaps I’m a glutton for punishment or maybe I tried to make sense of this Mickey Mantle autograph cut card.

This is a mini cut auto from 2010 Topps T206.

It’s also ugly, atrocious and a waste.

This card has drawn the ire of collectors everywhere. Sports Card Uncensored wrote about it and the folks at Freedom Cardboard have a thread about it.

Tell me if you actually thought this was a good idea.

I know that Mantle is one of the all-time greats and has a huge base of collectors because of his broad appeal. But there has to be a better way to include Mantle into a set than cutting up 55 percent of his autograph.

Topps has found creative ways to include Mantle and other former players into its sets, including clothes from celebrity outing and “relic” cards that really have nothing to do with the player.

This just seems like another ploy to get collectors interested.

Another, shall we say, gimmick.

Perhaps Topps could focus more on current players in its sets if the end product is going to be a Frankenstein hack job.


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4 thoughts on “Franken-Mantle

  1. If Topps ws really smart they would have cut betweent he Mickey and the Mantle and got 2 1/1 autp cards from the one auto. Instead they chopped the M in Mantle.

  2. Check out the Bando card in the ebay listing. Kudos to the seller for some fine sarcasm at Topps's expense. "The card says the swatch is a jersey — it must have been very painful to wear, since it's made of wood!" Way to go Topps!

  3. I posted this at another site and thought I would also share it with you.
    What I really enjoy is reading all these comments on why or how could they or how ugly this cut is. Everyone's a critic and yet they have no clue as to the reason the auto was cut like it was. So much critical speculation and yet no one actually has a clue. Ever think that the Mantle had possibly been smudged so they rescued the rest of the auto and made a unique 1/1 mini cut auto from it? How many mini cut auto's of him are out there? Would you have rather seen the partial readable auto on a card instead or even thrown away never to be seen again? This not only goes for cut autos but patch's, swatch's…. from any product of any person, place or thing. Once a historical item has deteriorated beyond repair what do you do with it? Save any and all parts left. Why do you think your able to get a cut auto of Abe Lincoln, George Washington, etc. ? If you lost all your favorite and important things in a house fire wouldn't you try to salvage whatever you could? Anytime you are able to save something like this you have rescued a part of history and that's a good thing. You take what you can get in those situations, there are no choices. With that being said I'm not saying this to "defend" the card I won, just how perspectives on things need to be looked at other than just one. It's easy to belittle something, but to understand the possibilities of it's creation, then you've rid yourself of those horse blinders that we can easily get used to wearing.

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