It's hard to date this letter because Mantle was injured so often. The example he set playing... [+]
Forbes Reader, Michael Hatcher: “I was just curious if you could appraise what I have. It's a generic typed letter by Mickey Mantle but it IS signed with what appears to be pencil. Slightly faded. Unfortunately not. It was in an old book I had purchased from a used book store a couple years back.”
Forbes Contributor, David Seideman : Alas I contacted two experts whose judgement I value and they both concur with me that your Mickey Mantle autograph is a “clubhouse,” signed by a team attendant.
“As you no doubt suspect, this signature isn't the Mick's,” Marty Appel wrote me. “Selling it would be inappropriate under the circumstances. Absolutely not his.” Appel is the author of 20 books, primarily on baseball. In one earlier post I highly recommended his latest, Pinstripe Pride The Inside Story of the New York Yankees. In another post, I wrote about his acquisition of Mickey Mantle’s last game-used bat in 1968, which Appel acquired and sold in auction for $15,000 to help pay for his son’s first year of tuition.
Appel launched his career in 1968 as a 19-year-old fan mail clerk for the New York Yankees, assigned to spend his summer answering Mickey Mantle’s fan mail. “Most of the letters were addressed to Mickey Mantle,” he writes in his book, Now Pitching for the Yankees: Spinning the News for Mickey, Billy, and George. “Most asked for his autograph, and most received a black-and-white photo with a facsimile autograph. I pretty much had the knack of this within an hour. It wasn’t brain surgery. And the secret proved to be saving up a batch of mail that I’d have to personally review with Mick in order to get some quality time with him. Those meetings in his locker were great; he’d read some letter, look at me quizzically, and crumple it with one hand. We’d laugh.
And so went the work. Reading a pile of letters, 90 percent of them for Mantle typing the envelopes occasionally writing a letter; and meetings with Mickey.”
This isn't an awful Mantle knock-off, but note the halting, shaky "M" in Mantle. It lacks the... [+]
Ron Keurajian, the author of Baseball Hall of Fame Autographs, which I lauded for Forbes, agreed with my appraisal, about $25 to $50, if honestly described. That’s better than nothing.
These days virtually any vintage Mantle collectible has value. This form letter with a gorgeous Yankee letterhead is rare; I’m unable to find another on the Internet. Plus the content about his injuries is compelling because it reinforces Mantle’s mystique. “[After tearing up a ligament in his knee in the 1951 World Series], Mantle would spend the rest of his career wrapping his legs in elastic bandages each, and suffering other related and unrelated injuries along the way,” Appel writes in Pinstripe Pride. His accomplishments— great as they were— needed to be measured against the serious injuries that always seemed to find him. Many people thought that without the injuries, he might have been the greatest player in history.”
There are two lessons learned from this baseball relic. Be extra careful about Mantle’s autograph. “Given the tremendous demand for Mantle material, many forgers have targeted his signature,” says Keurajian. “Well executed forgeries exist in mass quantities.” Furthermore, as I wrote for Forbes, always check old books for buried treasure.
