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Shares of Mickey Mantle’s childhood home up for bid
Collectors and investors have bid on and purchased everything imaginable, from the Yankee legend, from bats, balls, jerseys, caps, photos, signed checks, contracts, letters, ticket stubs, and high school yearbooks to the most valuable trading cards in the hobby.
Everything except the house Mantle grew up in has been collected, traded, and auctioned off.
Now, collectors and Mantle fans can own a piece of that, too.
Fractional investment company Rally is offering shares of Mantle’s childhood home, where he first learned his Hall of Fame baseball skills.
The Mantle home in Commerce, Okla. will be up for bid on Oct. 27 at 12 p.m. ET. In its first real-estate offering, Rally will be offering 47,000 shares at $7 per share for a total offering of $329,000, making the historic home available to investors of all income levels.
“From day one, we recognized that our first real-estate offering on Rally needed to have major historical significance,” said Rob Petrozzo, Rally's co-founder and chief product officer. “When sourcing potential assets, we always look closely at each property's backstory and provenance. Mickey Mantle's childhood home immediately stood out as the perfect option, aligning with the personal passions of our investor community.”
Located off Route 66 in Commerce, Mantle’s family first purchased the property at 319 South Quincy Street in 1934. The family-owned the property for more than a decade, and it remains in its original condition at Mickey’s request.
The home is where Mantle first began his fledgling baseball career. After starring for Commerce High School, the Yankees signed him to a contract in 1949, leading to the development of the three-time MVP, 20-time All-Star, and seven-time World Series champion.
The Mantle home is considered a historical landmark in Commerce.
“I don't think people here in general truly understand yet what we have,” Brian Waybright, chairman of the Mickey Mantle Memorial Trust in Commerce, said when the house first went up for auction, according to Rally.
“Mickey Mantle grew up here. People knew him. But mention the Mantle name outside of Commerce, and heads just turn.”
According to Rally, the Mantle home is the centerpiece of the tight-knit community of around 2,500. Many of Mantle’s family and friends still live there, and many streets and fields bear his name.
Many of Mantle’s ex-teammates have visited the home, including Bobby Richardson, Don Larsen, Johnny Blanchard, Bob Turley, and Goose Gossage. The property recently made an appearance in Sylvester Stallone’s “Tulsa King” TV series.
Though the offering is open to investors nationally, Rally hopes to distribute ownership shares to residents of Commerce, “giving them equity in the most famous home in town.”
The company will allow investors to make proposals on the future of the property, which will be submitted quarterly and voted on by all shareholders, allowing them to decide whether the home and property will become a museum, a national landmark, or a baseball field for local little league teams.
Any profits earned from those proposals will be returned to investors as quarterly dividends.
