Incredible Auction History – A Lot For Mickey Mantle’s 1967 Topps Stand-Ups Regular and Proof Cards

The 1967 Topps Stand-Ups are one of the scarcest Topps test issues, though Topps likely intended them as a 1968 release. Anyway, I ran across a December 2004 auction that featured both the Mickey Mantle proof and die-cut versions!

First, here’s what The Standard Catalog has to say about the set:

Never actually issued, no more than a handful of each of these rare test issues have made their way into the hobby market. Designed so that the color photo of the player’s head could be popped out of the black background and placed into a punch-out base to create a stand-up display, examples of these 3-1/8” x 5-1/4” cards can be found either on thick stock, die-cut around the portrait and with a die-cut stand, or as thin-stock proofs without the die-cutting. Blank-backed, there are 24 cards in the set, numbered on the front at bottom left.

In 2010, they priced the thick stock, die-cut set at $75k, and the thin stock, proof set at $60k. As for the dating, SABR has a great article explaining the likely intended release of 1968. Mantle is the set’s key player, followed by Clemente, Mays, and Aaron.

I’ve only found one other sale of a Mantle Stand-Up card when, in April 2005, Memory Lane Inc. sold the following GAI-8.5 graded die-cut example for just under $10k.

For SA, PSA has a single example of each Mantle variation in their Pop Report.

And since I run The Unopened Archive, here’s the lone wrapper example: Lelands sold it for $3k in November 2008.

TCDB includes this photo of what’s likely the only display box; the same one, I believe is shared in the article Standing Tall on The Topps Archives who shared a few more unopened items from the set in a piece called Yaz Sir!

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