NEW YORK — One of the most recognizable images of Mickey Mantle spent part of its life in one of the least glamorous places imaginable.
Inside a baseball book at a garage sale.
A couple browsing an oversized Topps baseball-card coffee-table book discovered a photograph of the young Yankees legend tucked inside, according to Heritage Auctions. Another photograph in the book showed Joe DiMaggio.
What initially looked like an unexpected bonus inside a secondhand book eventually became much more valuable.
The Mantle photograph was authenticated by PSA/DNA as a Type 2 print and sold through Heritage Auctions for $20,740 on Dec. 20, 2025. The unusual story behind the discovery returned to attention Monday in new reporting about the collectible.
The price is striking.
The details hidden inside the photograph are even better.
Photo captures Mantle before Yankees’ iconic No. 7
Mantle is almost inseparable from No. 7 in Yankees history.
That is not the number visible in this photograph.
Mantle is wearing No. 6, the number he briefly wore at the beginning of his rookie season before eventually adopting the number that would follow him into Monument Park.
The image captures Mantle during spring training at a moment when he had yet to become “The Mick,” a three-time MVP, Triple Crown winner or one of the defining players in Yankees history.
There is another small clue to just how early the photograph was taken.
The bat resting over Mantle’s right shoulder was not his.
Heritage identified it as belonging to Yankees first baseman Joe Collins. According to the auction house, Mantle had not yet established his own bat agreement with Hillerich & Bradsby.
Even the uniform tells part of the story.
Heritage pointed to Mantle’s rolled sleeve as another reminder that the 19-year-old rookie had not yet accumulated the stature that would later allow him to dictate small details about his Yankees uniform.
Those seemingly minor elements transform the photograph into a snapshot of Mantle before the mythology surrounding him had fully formed.
Garage-sale image became part of baseball-card history
Its importance goes well beyond showing a young Mantle.
The photograph supplied the image used to create Mantle’s 1951 Bowman rookie card, officially recognized as his rookie issue.
Bowman converted the photograph into the card’s familiar illustrated appearance. Variations of the same image were also used on Mantle’s 1952 Berk Ross card and his 1953 Topps card.
That connection gives the photograph a direct link to one of the most important pieces of postwar baseball-card history.
The 1951 Bowman often sits in the shadow of Mantle’s celebrated 1952 Topps card, but the Bowman came first. It depicts the future Yankees superstar in the batting pose captured by the photograph that somehow later ended up inside the garage-sale book.
The discovered photograph was not pristine.
Heritage reported surface wear, horizontal cracks in the glossy finish, areas of paper loss around the white border and a small tear along the right side.
Someone had also written “Mickey Mantle” on the reverse.
None of that prevented the Type 2 photograph from commanding five figures when it reached auction.
Another version shows just how valuable the image can become
The $20,740 result does not even represent the upper end of the market for this particular Mantle image.
A first-generation Type 1 version from the collection of former Yankees pitcher Jack Kramer sold through Heritage for an extraordinary $843,750 on April 7, 2024.
That photograph was taken by Yankees team photographer Bob Olen and had remained among Kramer’s keepsakes for decades.
Heritage said PSA knew of only four original examples of the famous image at the time of the auction. The $843,750 sale established what Heritage described as a record for a Type 1 sports photograph.
The enormous difference between the two prices reflects an important collecting distinction.
The garage-sale photograph received a Type 2 designation rather than the more valuable Type 1 classification given to an original first-generation photograph produced close to the moment the image was taken.
Yet its connection to Mantle’s rookie card remained unmistakable.
That is ultimately what makes the garage-sale story remarkable.
Collectors spend enormous sums searching for pieces connected to Mantle. His cards, uniforms, bats and photographs regularly command extraordinary prices.
This particular piece did not emerge from a famous collection or an elaborate vault.
It was sitting inside a baseball book at a garage sale.
And hidden between those pages was an image of a teenage Yankee wearing No. 6, borrowing Joe Collins’ bat and standing just before the beginning of one of the most celebrated careers in baseball history.
