Mickey Mantle(!)

In the pantheon of baseball autograph royalty, Babe Ruth obviously reigns as king.  However, when it comes to being coveted by the collector's community, Mickey Mantle resides in a place reserved for very few of the greatest baseball players ever to grace the earth.  Not only was he one of the all time great talents, but his being a member of the Yankees played into his becoming one of the most publicized athletes of his time. These factors paved the way to him becoming one of the best baseball players for autograph hounds to add to their collections.  Up until this point, I never had anything signed by him.  In the past, I would have preferred autographs from the upper echelon guys to be on major league baseballs.  However, I've had some recent instances where some of the baseballs have faded a bit, or bled into the ball.  When you start getting into the financial stratosphere of chasing after some of the all time greats, you want to to make damn sure your investment holds.  Nothing would be worse for me than adding a Mantle ball to display in my man cave, and then watching it like a hawk to make sure it doesn't fade ever so slightly.  I take all of the precautions already.  I keep autographs out of direct sunlight, I keep the humidity in the room down, and I also have most of my stuff behind UV protected displays.  As some of my more astute readers may have gleaned already, I've pivoted to photos.  Recently, I've added Ted Williams and Hank Aaron to my collection.  Now with Mantle in the mix, I have a corner of my room featuring these three illustrious players as well as the current version of Mickey Mantle, Mike Trout.  Let's get to the photo!

Interestingly, this autographs came with a full LOA (letter of authenticity) from JSA.  The vast majority of my items come with a COA (certificate of authenticity). I shouldn't but I'm going to include the picture on here for people to see.  Both of these type of authenticity confirmations essentially do the same thing, but with an LOA you get a much more in depth analysis of the item and a photo of the actual item to match.  The LOA is then signed by James Spence (the head of JSA) as well as signed by a notary public. 

I'm going to take the Aaron photo and the Mantle photo and get them matted in navy blue and frame them and put them in the aforementioned corner of my man cave.  I am also thinking about taking an 8x10 signed Junior Seau photo I've owned a long time and framing that as well.  When this project is done, I will update this blog with a photo of how it looks.

Another huge item is in the process of getting here, and that will likely be my last addition for a little while.  There will of course be a corresponding post about that item. This isn't a cheap hobby...

Thank you as always for reading!