Authentic Sports Autographs

A few months ago, I shared this 1984 ad from Richard Gelman that offered a T206 Honus Wagner card for $23k and .25 cent 1981 MSA Mini Discs on the same page, but another collector highlighted another great buy: the $24.99 life of Mickey Mantle set probably had the autograph in it!

Here’s a zoomed-in scan of “The Life of Mickey Mantle” section highlighting the 1982 set that Authentic Sports Autographs (ASA) released.

The Standard Catalog wrote that:

This 72-card set chronicles the life of Mickey Mantle in contemporary photos, many from Mantle’s own collection and many picturing him with such stars of the era as Maris, DiMaggio, Ted Williams, Mays, etc. A total of 20,000 sets was produced; 5,000 of them feature a genuine Mantle autograph on card #1 and 15,000 sets have no autograph. Back of cards from the autographed sets are printed in blue while the unautographed sets have backs printed in red. Issue price was $25 for the autographed set, $13 for the unsigned version.

TCDB has more set info, including that blue back cards with serial numbers 1-10 had every card in the set autographed and auctioned off with bids due by May 1, 1982. They also wrote that the blue back sets were originally $19.99, but sets ordered after May 31, 1982, were $24.99, while the red back sets were originally $9.99, increasing to $12.99.

A few more notes shared by TCDB:

14 cards in the set were printed in full color, and 58 are black, blue, and white.
There was one card for each of Mickey’s seasons.
There was one card for each of Mickey’s World Series.
The set was written and researched by Fred McMane of UPI.
Photos from Mickey and Merlyn Mantle’s personal collection.
Sets began shipping in May 1982.

That info comes from the following advertisement; please let me know if you know its source.

Update 30 Jan 2025: Andrew Aronstein told me that his dad distributed this set through his advertising vehicle, The Baseball Advertiser which is where the ad came from.