A stunning piece consigned from the collection of a long-time hobbyist who grew up outside Philadelphia a Phillies fan but had a soft spot for Mickey Mantle. He met Mantle at a Pennsylvania shopping mall signing in 1982 bringing with him a host of Mantle cards for the Yankees hero to sign. Among them was this lovely 1951 Bowman rookie card upon which Mantle applied his signature with smooth bold fiber-tip marker. Our consignor immediately committed the card - which at the time was valuable but nothing like what it is today - to protective plastic where it remained. At some point he submitted the card to PSA/DNA for authentication but when he consigned it to us we felt the card and signature were both strong enough to merit grading - so we submitted it to PSA. To our delight the card received a grade of VG-EX 4 (due to centering) while the signature received a perfect 10! This is an exceptional card. Recent sales of signed examples of this card have topped $20 000 with lower-graded signatures. According to PSA's population report just one signed Mantle rookie has attained a higher grade (a single card graded EX 5) and although pop reports do not exist for signatures we would imagine that with just 15 signed examples in PSA's report there cannot be many others graded 10 - if there are any at all. A clean reasonably sharp (if not well-centered) card with a pristine dynamic signature applied perfectly across the surface. Quite possibly the finest signed 1951 Bowman Mickey Mantle in existence.