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Rare Mickey Mantle card, 1961 Topps Dice Game set up for bid at CollectAuctions
Sometime between 1961 and 1963, Topps produced a Topps Dice Game test issue that featured player cards on the front and game-play data on the back.
Never released to the general public, the card set is considered the rarest test issue Topps ever produced, with only 19 cards graded and slabbed by PSA as of 2022, including only three of the most valuable card featuring Mickey Mantle.
An uncut sheet of the 1961 Topps Dice Game test issue featuring 18 All-Stars from the period, including the prized Mantle card, is now up for bid at @CollectAuctions. According to the auction company, the sheet of 2½-by-3½-inch cards is the only uncut sheet of one of the most rare card collectibles in the hobby.
The sheet is up for bid at CollectAuctions.net through April 3.
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According to CollectAuctions, the 18-by-14-inch sheet is in good condition. The front of the sheet has minimal wear to the corners and some staining on the broad white borders but less on the cards of the MLB All-Stars. The back of the sheet, which includes game charts and play results, is “remarkably clean and vivid.”
The most valuable section is the Mantle card. With only three having been graded by PSA, Heritage Auctions says it is more rare than a PSA 10 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle card. Two PSA 1 examples sold for $372,000 and $396,000 in 2021 and 2022 at Heritage.
The uncut sheet has a minimum bid of $10,000. CollectAuctions expects it to sell for six to seven figures.
“Given the sale price of the two Mantles alone, the sheet is expected to go for $500,000 to $1 million, but it’s impossible to know precisely since many of the cards haven’t been offered before and five of the 18 All-Stars haven’t even been graded at all by PSA,” said Steven Bloedow, owner of CollectAuctions.net.
The sheet also features a Willie Mays card that also has only been graded three times by PSA. A graded Mays card sold for $85,000 at Memory Lane Inc., while other graded cards from the set have sold for around $10,000 when graded PSA 1.
The rest of the set features such stars as Don Drysdale, Stan Musial, Frank Robinson, Del Crandall, Dick Groat, Jim Davenport, Bill Mazeroski, Bill White, Camilo Pascual, Al Kaline, Tony Kubek, Brooks Robinson, and Bobby Richardson.
According to Bloedow, the Topps test issue was likely inspired by the growing interest in tabletop baseball board games in the 1960s, but was likely produced after the 1962 season. The most compelling evidence, he said, is Groat’s card in which he is wearing an airbrushed St. Louis Cardinals cap and Pittsburgh Pirates uniform. Groat, the 1960 MVP for the Pirates, was traded to the Cardinals after the 1962 season.
All 18 players in the set were All-Stars at some point between 1959-62, when MLB held two All-Star games each summer.
The Spring CollectAuctions.net sale also features a signed and graded near complete set of 1952 Topps Baseball cards as well as many unopened boxes and wax packs and hundreds of Post Cereal baseball and football panels.
