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Former Yankee pitcher puts iconic 1951 Mickey Mantle Type 1 photo on market
Jack Kramer spent 12 years pitching in the major leagues, winning Game 3 of the 1944 World Series for the St. Louis Browns and finishing his career with the 1951 New York Yankees.
A three-time All-Star, Kramer’s career highlights included an 18-5 record for the 1948 Red Sox. He finished his career with a pedestrian 95-103 record and 4.24 ERA, including 1-3 with a 4.65 ERA over 19 games (three starts) for the 1951 Yankees.
But the right-hander from New Orleans walked away from the big leagues with some historic mementoes from his lone season with the Yankees, including the original Type 1 photo used for Mickey Mantle’s iconic 1951 Bowman rookie card.
Kramer’s Yankee mementoes included baseballs, newspaper clippings, programs and photos. About 35 years ago, he asked a friend to make a scrapbook with his keepsakes.
While assembling the scrapbook, Kramer’s friend discovered a plain brown envelope bearing the Yankees’ logo and a handwritten note: “Pictures of 1952 New York Yanks all individuals.”
Inside the envelope was a collection of original, 8-by-10 glossy black-and-white photos featuring members of the 1951 Yankees taken by team photographer Bob Olen. Kramer’s portrait was included along with photos of such Yankee legends as Joe DiMaggio, Yogi Berra, Phil Rizzuto, and the 19-year-old Mantle.
The Mantle photo, who shows the young outfielder wearing a No. 6 jersey with his bat perched on his shoulder, is among the most defining of his career. The colorized image of the photo was used on Mantle’s first baseball card, the 1951 Bowman card that has become his second-most valuable card behind only the record-setting 1952 Topps card. The iconic image was also used for Mantle’s 1952 Berk Ross card and his 1953 Topps offering.
The Mantle photo, only the fourth known example of the iconic image, was enclosed in the brown Yankees envelope, sealed in a Ziploc bag and stored in a cedar chest for decades. It now highlights Heritage’s Photo Legends Type 1 Showcase Auction, along with Kramer’s other Yankees portraits.
Kramer's photo collection includes his own Yankee photo, as well as images of DiMaggio, Berra, Billy Martin and other Yankee greats from the 1951 season.
With Type 1 photos representing some of the hottest items on the collectibles market, Heritage plans to hold Type 1 photo auctions every six weeks for the foreseeable future.
The current auction, which runs through April 7, includes more than 120 iconic, original Type 1 images spanning the worlds of sports, entertainment and history. They feature such historic figures as President John F. Kennedy, Marylin Monroe, Jane Fonda, Elvis, the Beatles, Elton John and scientists J. Robert Oppenheimer and Albert Einstein. Many were publicity photos used in newspapers and magazines.
“These photos are as close as you can get to a you-are-there moment without a time machine,” says Heritage Auctions’ Executive Vice President Joe Maddalena. “In many cases, these are the works of photojournalists who turned into inadvertent artists while capturing the famous in off-guard moments. This auction contains portraits featuring fresh-faced immortals still trying to make a name for themselves. We’re thrilled to debut this category, which will offer countless opportunities in coming months and years for people to own the history-makers while they were making that history.”
Six photos in the auction feature Marilyn Monroe, including an image with husband Joe DiMaggio on their honeymoon on Feb. 1, 1954. In 2002, Heritage sold a signed Monroe photo inscribed to DiMaggio for a record $375,000.
