# Why can't you just print Mickey Mantle rookie cards? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 31, 2021, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-cant-you-just-print-mickey-mantle-rookie-cards/931938 "2021-01-31T19:35:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2021, 12:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-cant-you-just-print-mickey-mantle-rookie-cards/931938/21 "2021-02-02T12:46:44Z")
There is a market for fakes. A friend of mine loves watches. He owns three or four Rolex watches, but is always buying/selling Rolexes. Over the years he’s purposefully purchased fake Rolexes and now has a dozen fakes. Some are pure shite, but some are nearly real; that is they are watches made entirely from real Rolex parts, but they are not authentic Rolexes. He loves pointing out how he discovered some of his best fakes. ---
**Author:** ![Schnitte](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/schnitte/32/9033_2.png) [@Schnitte](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Schnitte)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2021, 2:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-cant-you-just-print-mickey-mantle-rookie-cards/931938/22 "2021-02-02T14:13:45Z")
> [@Keith1](#): > > Superior print quality & paper quality, which is all they are. They are pieces of card. > No talent went into the manufacture of these cards. It’s not anything like a famous painting, sculpture etc that could only have been created by a particularly talented individual. It’s a bloody card that was manufactured by the thousands, not much different than a plumbing fixture. If people want to spend money on it, good for them. I’d give the money to charity if I had that much to throw around. Given a choice of investing, I’d invest in something a little more unique, like artwork. Something that someone has actually invested training & talent into. Something you could look at and admire in terms of quality & craftsmanship. A piece of paper doesn’t do it for me. I take it you’re not into philately or numismatics either? Granted, the pecuniary values in such fields can change fast. In the 1990s, calling card collecting became a fad in Germany. The cards themselves had been introduced only a few years before (up to then, all public payphones in Germany were coin-operated), and Telekom, the monopolist phone company, started issuing prepaid phone cards in large quantities, some of them “limited edition” series with elaborate artworks. Collecting them became a fashionable hobby, and prices for sought-after items rose fast. By now, the market has collapsed entirely, and even items that would fetch thousands back then are now easily available for little money. I hear things have been developing along similar lines in philately. There was a boom in this hobby in the 1960s and 1970s (giving rise to the infamous Apollo 15 scandal), but nowadays people who took it up as a pastime back then and have kept it up for the rest of their lives are dying. Oftentimes, their heirs hope they can then sell grandpa’s stamp collection for big bucks, but these demographic trends mean that supply is rising and demand falling, and it’s easy to imagine what this does to prices. The absolute top-level stamps of the likes of “Mauritius Post Office” still retain their value, but stamps that, although valuable, were within the reach of the mass market are fetching only fractions of the prices with which catalogues used to list them. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2021, 2:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-cant-you-just-print-mickey-mantle-rookie-cards/931938/23 "2021-02-02T14:30:46Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > > [@Keith1](#): > > > > No talent went into the manufacture of these cards. It’s not anything like a famous painting, sculpture etc that could only have been created by a particularly talented individual. It’s a bloody card that was manufactured by the thousands, not much different than a plumbing fixture. > > You don’t think it took some talent for a ballplayer to get his picture printed on a card at all? And a lot more talent for that card to end up being worth a fortune? > > Really, do you have any point at all? Is a Rembrandt basically worthless because it’s made of old cloth and smeared with paint? **Moderating** You are clearly not responding to the point **Keith1** was making, which was about the manufacture of the card itself, not the person it was depicting. And the snark is particularly misplaced. Let’s drop this hijack. Colibri General Questions Moderator ---
**Author:** ![naita](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/naita/32/5862_2.png) [@naita](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/naita)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2021, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-cant-you-just-print-mickey-mantle-rookie-cards/931938/24 "2021-02-02T14:58:47Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > I once read an article by a guy who counterfeited Magic cards. He would print up duplicates of fairly rare cards and sell them for about half of the list price those cards would get. He said a lot of his customers were aware he was selling counterfeits but didn’t really care. They were getting cards they wanted, regardless of whether they were fake or real. Thing about expensive M:tG-cards, as far as I can tell as a spectator, is that some of the price is because rarer cars are also powerful cars in play. Someone might not want to pay for a fake card as a collectors item, and certainly not as an investment, but could get a powerful card they want to use in the deck and it might never be examined for authenticity. (I have no idea if there’s a level of tournament play where someone will check you’re not using high quality fakes.) ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2021, 3:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-cant-you-just-print-mickey-mantle-rookie-cards/931938/25 "2021-02-02T15:02:28Z")
> [@Keith1](#): > > It’s a bloody card that was manufactured by the thousands, not much different than a plumbing fixture. Sure. And if in the year 2200 mass-produced plumbing fixtures from the 1900/2000s become a) hard to come by and b) collectible (for whatever reason–it matters not), they’ll also be fetching a pretty penny. It’s just supply-demand at its simplest: Do I have something people want? Are there many of them around? ---
**Author:** ![gdave](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gdave/32/3683_2.png) [@gdave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gdave)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2021, 3:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-cant-you-just-print-mickey-mantle-rookie-cards/931938/26 "2021-02-02T15:10:27Z")
> [@naita](#): > > Thing about expensive M:tG-cards, as far as I can tell as a spectator, is that some of the price is because rarer cars are also powerful cars in play. Someone might not want to pay for a fake card as a collectors item, and certainly not as an investment, but could get a powerful card they want to use in the deck and it might never be examined for authenticity. (I have no idea if there’s a level of tournament play where someone will check you’re not using high quality fakes.) Yes, this is exactly right. Unlike baseball cards, MtG cards have actual utility. There are actual cash-prize tournaments, and the cards you physically own and have in your deck can make a big difference in game play. A high-quality fake that can pass casual inspection by your opponent and tournament judges has actual value, even if it wouldn’t stand up to a careful forensic examination. An unscrupulous player might well pay good money for a card they know is a fake as long as it’s of better quality than they can forge themselves and they think it’s good enough quality not to get noticed in tournament play. Note, though, that a lot of cards have been banned from tournament play, and some of the really rare cards would attract a high level of scrutiny if they turned up in actual tournament play, so this kind of forgery only works for certain “mid-rare” cards. Beyond that, MtG cards can also be true collector’s items in and of themselves. The $500,000 card mentioned upthread is _not_ worth that as a functional tournament card - that’s a true collector’s price. And at that price, in that market, although the market isn’t nearly as mature or deep as the one for vintage baseball cards, you would still expect some sort of vetting and authentication. ---
**Author:** ![Keith1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/6de8d8/32.png) [@Keith1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Keith1)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2021, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-cant-you-just-print-mickey-mantle-rookie-cards/931938/27 "2021-02-02T15:12:24Z")
> [@Schnitte](#): > > I take it you’re not into philately or numismatics either? Heh,heh. You got me 😉 No I can’t say I’m a fan of either. However I’ll give them more credence than a sports card. Several years ago one could find sport & other memorabilia shops around my area as well. Most have gone out of business. Obviously the major players have so much invested that they’re keeping the hobby alive as best they can, but I suspect that’s what it’s become — those that can’t lose what they’ve invested. Can’t say I blame them for doing what they can to keep interest alive. Sports cards were manufactured for kids who admired (idolized) sports figures and hoped to even one day follow in their footsteps and become a star themselves. Of course the same admiration still exists with kids today. I could have named most players in the NHL along with their sweater number. I find it a little troubling when people follow that idol worship into their adult years, but that runs into another topic altogether. Anyway, your post reminded me that I have a few old coins that I inherited. I need to have them checked out one day. Could change my opinion of numismatics. > [@TriPolar](#): > > You don’t think it took some talent for a ballplayer to get his picture printed on a card at all? Of course it takes talent to reach that level and they most certainly deserve their spot in the Hall Of Fame. But that strays from the point. > [@TriPolar](#): > > Is a Rembrandt basically worthless because it’s made of old cloth and smeared with paint? Not to sound mean spirited but this is just ridiculous. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2021, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-cant-you-just-print-mickey-mantle-rookie-cards/931938/28 "2021-02-02T15:19:15Z")
> [@Keith1](#): > > Of course it takes talent to reach that level and they most certainly deserve their spot in the Hall Of Fame. But that strays from the point. I apologize for my snarkiness before, I had forgotten this was the General Questions forum. Your response seemed to be far off the point. The value of baseball cards is based on the rarity of the card combined with the demand for it based on a ballplayers performance in their career. The quality of the artwork or cardstock is irrelevant. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2021, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-cant-you-just-print-mickey-mantle-rookie-cards/931938/29 "2021-02-02T15:23:31Z")
> [@Keith1](#): > > > [@TriPolar](#): > > > > You don’t think it took some talent for a ballplayer to get his picture printed on a card at all? > > Of course it takes talent to reach that level and they most certainly deserve their spot in the Hall Of Fame. But that strays from the point. > > > [@TriPolar](#): > > > > Is a Rembrandt basically worthless because it’s made of old cloth and smeared with paint? > > Not to sound mean spirited but this is just ridiculous. **Moderating** Once a post has been moderated, there is no longer any need to respond to it. To everyone else: Please ignore **TriPolar’s** post. It is excluded from discussion. Colibri General Questions Moderator ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2021, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-cant-you-just-print-mickey-mantle-rookie-cards/931938/30 "2021-02-02T15:25:17Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > Your response seemed to be far off the point. The value of baseball cards is based on the rarity of the card combined with the demand for it based on a ballplayers performance in their career. The quality of the artwork or cardstock is irrelevant. I instructed you to drop the discussion. I am further instructing you to not post further in this thread. Colibri General Questions Moderator ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2021, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-cant-you-just-print-mickey-mantle-rookie-cards/931938/31 "2021-02-02T15:29:34Z")
Trading cards have been booming, thanks to the pandemic. > **['It has been absolutely insane': Trading card industry has boomed during...](https://www.sportingnews.com/us/mlb/news/trading-card-industry-has-boomed-during-pandemic/10t850qdlc24c101eezddjxibg)** > > There's only so much Netflix a sports fan can watch to fill time. Enter a rejuvenated trading card market. ---
**Author:** ![Didi44](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e47c2d/32.png) [@Didi44](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Didi44)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2021, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-cant-you-just-print-mickey-mantle-rookie-cards/931938/32 "2021-02-02T16:13:31Z")
I knew a guy who would play in official Yu-Gi-Oh! tournaments and couldn’t understand why people would play casually with counterfeit cards. He’d say, “They can’t use those cards in a tournament!” He just couldn’t understand that they were just interested in the gameplay itself. ---
**Author:** ![Schnitte](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/schnitte/32/9033_2.png) [@Schnitte](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Schnitte)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2021, 5:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-cant-you-just-print-mickey-mantle-rookie-cards/931938/33 "2021-02-02T17:15:05Z")
In a way, the baseball cards we’Re talking about here are a counter-example (though a rare one, I believe) to a point made [in a previous thread](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-mint-enrollment-program/928771/): That items which are specifically produced and marketed as “collectibles” are, by definition, not valuable. I wonder if some criminally minded people at the baseball card companies try to take advantage of this. I don’t think it would be beyond the powers of someone working at Topps to steal a few specimens of each card they print in a given year and stow them away, just in case they become valuable. It’s takes a long perspective, but if it brings in big money for your children it might still be an attractive scheme. ---
**Author:** ![BwanaBob](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bwanabob/32/2985_2.png) [@BwanaBob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BwanaBob)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2021, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-cant-you-just-print-mickey-mantle-rookie-cards/931938/34 "2021-02-02T17:24:36Z")
My Dad worked for Topps when they were in Brooklyn. It was typical for employees to take home an uncut sheet of cards, mostly if they were heading for scrap due to a production error, but sometimes they were flawless. Not just baseball, but other franchises that Topps had contracts with. My brother was king of the neighborhood because he could get kids cards they needed for their collections. And yes, my mother tossed out any remaining card sheets we had when we moved out to Long Island because by then my brother was in HS and didn’t care, and I hadn’t yet caught the baseball bug. But I’m sure a lot of Topps moms did the same. ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2021, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-cant-you-just-print-mickey-mantle-rookie-cards/931938/35 "2021-02-02T17:31:43Z")
I do not collect baseball cards, but I wouldn’t mind having a framed 1989 Bill Ripken card FUCKFACE ---
**Author:** ![gdave](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gdave/32/3683_2.png) [@gdave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gdave)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2021, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-cant-you-just-print-mickey-mantle-rookie-cards/931938/36 "2021-02-02T17:55:38Z")
> [@Schnitte](#): > > In a way, the baseball cards we’Re talking about here are a counter-example (though a rare one, I believe) to a point made [in a previous thread](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-mint-enrollment-program/928771/): That items which are specifically produced and marketed as “collectibles” are, by definition, not valuable. Actually, I don’t think they are. Originally, baseball cards were ephemera. You got a free card with a pack of gum. They were intended to be “collectible” only for certain values of collectible. They were mainly aimed at tweenage boys, who were not expected to carefully preserve them, much less hold on to them for decades. They were a cheap sales gimmick that took off on its own. That’s precisely _why_ Mickey Mantle rookie cards are so rare - out of however many thousands of cards that were printed, only a very few were actually treated as valuable collectibles at the time. > [@Schnitte](#): > > I wonder if some criminally minded people at the baseball card companies try to take advantage of this. I don’t think it would be beyond the powers of someone working at Topps to steal a few specimens of each card they print in a given year and stow them away, just in case they become valuable. It’s takes a long perspective, but if it brings in big money for your children it might still be an attractive scheme. I suspect between the uncertainties of a baseball card’s future value and the relatively long time horizon for appreciation, while it seems entirely possible _someone_ has done this, it’s probably not a particularly attractive scheme. On the other hand, this has _absolutely_ happened with other collectible/trading cards, such as _Magic: The Gathering_. Those cards are explicitly produced with a carefully managed range of varying rarities and carefully managed randomized distribution in sealed “blind” packs. A sheet of Very Rare cards becomes immediately valuable as soon as that set is released, and employees have in fact embezzled undistributed cards. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2021, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-cant-you-just-print-mickey-mantle-rookie-cards/931938/37 "2021-02-02T18:10:23Z")
Wouldn’t you just buy a “box set” that has all the cards? Or are there cards that you can’t get in such a set. I seem to remember as a kid in the 80s when baseball cards really took off and every other kid in class had a copy of Beckett’s to look up card values, that you can get that entire year’s set from Topps, Donruss , Fleer quite easily. ---
**Author:** ![gdave](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gdave/32/3683_2.png) [@gdave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gdave)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2021, 6:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-cant-you-just-print-mickey-mantle-rookie-cards/931938/38 "2021-02-02T18:21:39Z")
That’s a great point. Baseball cards aren’t that expensive. Even if you only wanted copies of a few “can’t miss” rookies, it wouldn’t be that expensive to legally buy them individually. On the other hand, an uncut sheet of valuable cards could be even more valuable than the cards themselves, and _might_ be worth the risk to steal them. On the gripping hand, provenance becomes a real issue there - how would you later sell the sheets without revealing how you got them? ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2021, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-cant-you-just-print-mickey-mantle-rookie-cards/931938/39 "2021-02-02T18:35:34Z")
> [@gdave](#): > > Actually, I don’t think they are. Originally, baseball cards were ephemera. You got a free card with a pack of gum. They were intended to be “collectible” only for certain values of collectible. They were mainly aimed at tweenage boys, who were not expected to carefully preserve them, much less hold on to them for decades. They were a cheap sales gimmick that took off on its own. That’s precisely _why_ Mickey Mantle rookie cards are so rare - out of however many thousands of cards that were printed, only a very few were actually treated as valuable collectibles at the time. Right. Baseball cards were not originally made with the idea that people would collect and save them for decades. They were trading cards made for boys, who would exchange them, play games with them, put them in bicycle spokes to make noise, etc. A kid might try to amass a whole set as a hobby but was expected to lose interest and pitch them out before he went to college. It wasn’t until the 1970s that people really took a serious interest in collecting cards, and cards began being sold for their own sake without a stick of gum. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2021, 7:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-cant-you-just-print-mickey-mantle-rookie-cards/931938/40 "2021-02-02T19:06:36Z")
> [@gdave](#): > > Yes, this is exactly right. Unlike baseball cards, MtG cards have actual utility. There are actual cash-prize tournaments, and the cards you physically own and have in your deck can make a big difference in game play. I wonder if it would be okay to play a rare slabbed card in its packaging. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-cant-you-just-print-mickey-mantle-rookie-cards/931938.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-cant-you-just-print-mickey-mantle-rookie-cards/931938.md?page=3)