1951 Bowman Mickey Mantle #253 RC

The biggest set Bowman ever made

Bowman Gum, a Philadelphia company that was a subsidiary of Haelan Laboratories, had become the leading maker of bubble gum cards in three years. Its 1948 baseball set was 48 black-and-white cards; the 1949 set added hand-colored photographs and grew to 240 cards; the 1950 set switched to full-color paintings made from photographs. By 1950, by one account, Bowman's baseball card sales alone reached $1 million.

The 1951 set was the largest Bowman ever produced: 324 cards, at a time when 16 teams carried 25 players each, so roughly 85 percent of active major leaguers ended up on a card. Kids bought them in one-cent and six-cent packs. The cards measure 2 1/16 by 3 1/8 inches, the same width as the year before but longer, and most show a vertical portrait recreated as color artwork from a photograph.

The set was issued in series, and the last one, cards #253 through #324, is the scarce 'high-number' series that carries a premium over the rest of the set. Mantle's card, #253, leads it off. Only 39 cards in the set are horizontal, and two of them are the set's keys: Mantle at #253 and Willie Mays, also a rookie, at #305.

A switch-hitter built by his father

Mickey Charles Mantle was born on October 20, 1931, in Spavinaw, Oklahoma. His father, Elvin 'Mutt' Mantle, a lead miner and semi-pro ballplayer, named him after the Hall of Fame catcher Mickey Cochrane and trained him from childhood to bat from both sides of the plate. The family moved to Commerce, Oklahoma, when Mickey was four.

Yankees scout Tom Greenwade signed him in 1949 to a minor league contract for $140 a month and a $1,500 signing bonus. Mantle rose quickly through the farm system, and the press built him up as the next Yankees star. He was given uniform No. 6, to follow Babe Ruth's 3, Lou Gehrig's 4 and Joe DiMaggio's 5. A sliver of that 6 shows on the back of his jersey on the Bowman card.

He debuted on April 17, 1951, against the Boston Red Sox, at 19. The start was rough: by one account he had struck out 52 times by mid-July, and the Yankees sent him to the Kansas City Blues. After 40 games there he was called back for the pennant race, now wearing No. 7, the number he kept for the rest of his career. He finished his rookie season with 13 home runs and a .267 average in 96 games.

New York, October 1951

Mantle's rookie year ended in one of the most famous Octobers in baseball. The Giants, 13 1/2 games behind Brooklyn on August 11, caught the Dodgers and won the pennant on October 3 on Bobby Thomson's 'shot heard round the world.' The Yankees, two-time defending champions, won the American League by five games over Cleveland.

In Game 2 of the World Series, on October 5 at Yankee Stadium, the Giants' rookie Willie Mays lifted a fly ball to right-center. DiMaggio called Mantle off; Mantle stutter-stepped, caught a cleat in a drain cover and went down with a wrenched knee. He missed the rest of the Series, and the injury nagged him for his whole career. The Yankees won in six games for their third straight title. It was DiMaggio's last Series, and he retired after the season, leaving center field to Mantle.

Beyond the ballpark, 1951 was the year the 22nd Amendment limited presidents to two terms, the Census Bureau took delivery of the UNIVAC I computer, President Truman relieved General Douglas MacArthur of command in Korea, and 'I Love Lucy' made its television debut.

What to look for

The card is horizontal: Mantle grips a bat from the right side against a cloud-dappled background. His 1952 Topps card shows him batting left-handed, so the two most famous early Mantle cards show both halves of a switch-hitter. One catalog writer compared the Bowman's painted sky to the pre-World War I T3 Turkey Red cabinet cards. The back is printed vertically and carries a short biography.

Like most high-number cards in the set, Mantle's is hard to find clean. Print lines, poor centering and wax stains on the reverse are the usual problems, and even unhandled copies can come out of the pack with those flaws. That is why grade matters so much here.

As of 2026, PSA reports one PSA 10 (from a collection credited to Donald E. Spence), nine PSA 9s, 53 PSA 8s and 115 PSA 7s. In 2009 PSA had graded 1,150 copies, with 46 PSA 8s, nine PSA 9s and one PSA 10, so the top of the census has barely moved in nearly two decades while the number of lower-grade copies kept growing. A PSA 7, the grade on this FLOAT 100 entry, is near mint: as of 2026, 93 copies sat above that grade.

From the 'other' Mantle to a $3 million card

For decades the 1952 Topps Mantle overshadowed this card, even though the Bowman is the true rookie. In June 1985 a hobby price guide listed the Bowman Mantle at $396 in near-mint condition. As late as 2009, a hobby price guide valued a PSA 8 copy at about $18,000.

Then prices rose sharply. On August 30, 2013, a PSA 9 sold at auction for $220,150, including a 19 percent buyer's premium. On May 10, 2015, a PSA 8 brought $95,600, reported at the time as a record public auction price for the card (a PSA 9 had brought more in 2013); five years earlier, the same grade had sold for about $20,000. On April 19, 2018, a PSA 9 sold at auction for $750,000, a record that stood for four years.

On December 3, 2022, one of the nine PSA 9s sold at auction for $3,192,000, more than four times the old record. It was the centerpiece of 15 high-grade Mantle cards, 14 of them PSA 9s, that an East Coast collector had spent about a decade assembling. Before the sale the auctioneer said it expected at least $4 million; the opening bid was $500,000.

The middle grades followed. In summer 2023 a PSA 8 sold at auction for $372,000. On February 28, 2026, a PSA 2 copy that Mantle had signed early in his career, with its autograph graded a perfect 10, sold for $451,400, a record for a signed Mantle rookie.

The card that started the Mantle story

Bowman's run at the top did not last. Topps entered the market in 1952 and paid players $125 for their rights against Bowman's $100. Bowman sued, claiming Topps was interfering with players under contract to it, and Mantle did not appear on a regular Topps card again until 1956, after Topps bought Bowman for $200,000.

Mantle became the most widely collected player in the hobby. He won the Triple Crown in 1956 with a .353 average, 52 home runs and 130 RBI, won three MVP awards and played on seven World Series winners, setting Series records with 18 home runs, 40 RBI and 42 runs. The Yankees retired No. 7 in 1969, and he entered the Hall of Fame in 1974 on 322 of 365 ballots.

He died on August 13, 1995, in Dallas, two months shy of his 64th birthday, after a liver transplant and a cancer diagnosis. Collectors still argue Bowman against Topps, but the 1951 card has one thing the 1952 can't claim: it came first.

The numbers

1951 season (Yankees)

96 G, 341 AB, 61 R, 91 H, 11 2B, 5 3B, 13 HR, 65 RBI, 8 SB, 43 BB, 74 SO, .267 BA, .349 OBP, .443 SLG

1951 minors

40 games with the Kansas City Blues after a midseason demotion

1956 season

.353 BA, 52 HR, 130 RBI: Triple Crown and first MVP

MVP awards

3 (1956, 1957, 1962)

World Series records

18 HR, 40 RBI, 42 runs in 12 Series; 7 titles

Career (1951-1968)

2,401 G, 2,415 H, 536 HR, 1,509 RBI, .298 BA, .421 OBP, .557 SLG

Hall of Fame

1974, first ballot; 322 of 365 votes (88.2%)

Timeline

1. Oct 20, 1931

   Mickey Mantle is born in Spavinaw, Oklahoma.

2. 1949

   Yankees scout Tom Greenwade signs Mantle for $140 a month and a $1,500 bonus.

3. Apr 17, 1951

   Mantle debuts for the Yankees against Boston, wearing No. 6.

4. 1951

   After a slump he is sent to the Kansas City Blues, then recalled after 40 games and given No. 7.

5. 1951

   Bowman issues its 324-card set; Mantle's #253 leads off the scarce high-number series.

6. Oct 5, 1951

   Mantle wrecks his knee on a drain cover in Game 2 of the World Series.

7. 1956

   Mantle wins the Triple Crown. Topps buys Bowman for $200,000.

8. 1969

   The Yankees retire No. 7.

9. 1974

   Mantle is elected to the Hall of Fame on his first ballot.

10. Aug 13, 1995

    Mantle dies in Dallas at 63.

11. Aug 30, 2013

    A PSA 9 copy sells at auction for $220,150.

12. May 10, 2015

    A PSA 8 sells at auction for $95,600.

13. Apr 19, 2018

    A PSA 9 sells at auction for $750,000.

14. Dec 3, 2022

    A PSA 9 sells at auction for $3,192,000, more than four times the previous record.

15. Feb 28, 2026

    A PSA 2 copy signed by Mantle early in his career sells for $451,400.

The world in 1951

• Jan 27, 1951

  Nuclear testing begins at the Nevada Test Site.

• Feb 27, 1951

  The 22nd Amendment, limiting presidents to two terms, is ratified.

• Mar 31, 1951

  The UNIVAC I computer is delivered to the Census Bureau.

• Apr 5, 1951

  Julius and Ethel Rosenberg are sentenced to death for espionage.

• Apr 11, 1951

  President Truman relieves General Douglas MacArthur of command.

• Oct 3, 1951

  Bobby Thomson's 'shot heard round the world' wins the pennant for the Giants.

• Oct 15, 1951

  'I Love Lucy' debuts on CBS.

Daily price data

FLOAT reprices this card every day from completed sales. Last updated November 12, 2026.

No completed sale at PSA 7 is on record yet. The same card at other grades:

Every grade and recorded sale for this card

Price record

A realized auction price is what a buyer actually paid on the date shown, including the buyer's premium where the sale reported it. It is the strongest kind of reference price, and it is a record of one sale of one object on one day, not a promise of what the next example will bring.

By reference price, 1951 Bowman Mickey Mantle #253 RC is number 29 of 100 in the trading cards entries of the FLOAT 100. 97 of those 100 rest on a realized sale; the rest carry an asking price or a guide value, and each page says which. Rank within the FLOAT 100 itself (7 here) is editorial: how much an object defines its field, not price alone.

Did you know

• The Bowman card shows Mantle batting right-handed; his 1952 Topps card shows him batting left-handed.
• A sliver of the No. 6 he wore before switching to No. 7 is visible on the back of his jersey on the card.
• Mantle was named after Hall of Fame catcher Mickey Cochrane.
• The fly ball Mantle was chasing when he wrecked his knee in the 1951 World Series was hit by Willie Mays, whose own rookie card is also in the 1951 Bowman high-number series.
• In 1985 a hobby price guide listed this card at $396 in near-mint condition.
• The 1951 Bowman set, at 324 cards, was the largest Bowman ever made.
• Joe DiMaggio, the man Mantle replaced in center field, is not in the 1951 Bowman set.