Baseball Fan Finishes off 1952 Bowman PSA Set
Growing up a New York Yankees fan, Gary Gray collected cards of his favorite players in pinstripes.
Mickey Mantle held a special place in his heart, and Gray acquired a 1952 Bowman of Yankee legend. Even though the card had a large pencil mark on Mantle’s forehead, Gray loved it.
“That’s always been my favorite Mantle card,” Gray said. “Growing up, my father was a big Mickey Mantle fan. So, he was really excited when I got the thing.”
When Gray got older and became more established as a collector, he made it a priority to track down a nicer example of that ’52 Bowman Mantle.
Gray pulled the trigger on the purchase about three years ago, picking up an aesthetically pleasing PSA 5.
“It’s a nice-looking card,” said the 59-year-old. “I would have liked to have a higher graded one for the sake of the set. But budget always comes into play.”
The artist portrait of the 1952 Bowman resonates with Gray.
“When I finally had the resources to purchase one, I went ahead and got a PSA-graded one,” Gray said. “Then I thought, well, maybe I’ll just tackle the whole set since the big piece is out of the way.”
That’s what Gray decided to do but with a little wrinkle. He was going to collect the entire set in PSA slabs.
Becoming a ’52 Bowman Set Collector
Gray knew collecting all 252 cards of the set would be daunting. However, the retired prison worker from central Pennsylvania was up for the challenge.
As the adage goes, slow and steady wins the race; that was Gray’s philosophy throughout his two-and-a-half-year journey.
“It’s a big set, so I knew it was going to be a long-term deal,” said Gray, who tried to keep every card in the set at a PSA 6 or above. “Tracking them all down is challenging, especially when you want a certain grade. It wouldn’t have been so bad if I was doing them in any grade. There is a big demand for the Yankees and the Dodgers, specifically through the 1950s, because they had such big teams. They get tougher to find. There’s also a high number series in the set — numbers 217 to 252 — are all high numbers. They’re not super hard to find. But a little bit more difficult in the high grades.”
With just the Mantle in his possession, Gray began his set collecting by purchasing a ’52 Bowman lot of about 50 PSA-graded cards.
“That gave me a really good start on it,” Gray said. “After that, I’d seek out the bigger names, the Musial, Roy Campanella, Willie Mays. Once I got all the big names off the list, I got down to the commons.”
Gray primarily picked up cards that were already graded, scouring eBay and other auction sites.
Some of the common players from that set were the most difficult to track down. Gray said because of the popularity of the Yankees and Red Sox, those players’ cards were the scarcest. That included Johnny Pesky from the Boston Red Sox and the Yankees’ Joe Collins.
In early February of this year, Gray picked up card No. 6 of Cincinnati Reds shortstop Virgil Stallcup to finally complete the set.
“It’s always a big exhale,” Gray said. “It’s always nice to have it finished. But like I say, it’s never completely finished, because I want to do upgrades. So I’m still looking. But to have it at 100% is always a good feeling.”
Gray has uploaded his set to PSA’s Set Registry. Using the handle There was No Joy in Mudville, Gray has the 16th-ranked ’52 Bowman published set among registry users.
Gray’s set breaks down like this: 80 cards are graded PSA 8, four cards are 7.5, 100 cards are 7, two cards are 6.5, 65 cards are 6, and one card — the Mantle — is a 5. That gives Gray a set rating of 6.87.
“I was trying to get it up to 7, and I’m still working on upgrades to maybe make it there,” Gray said. “It’s a very slow process. The needle doesn’t move much when you’re buying commons and stuff, and just trying to upgrade a point or two from a PSA 6 to an 8.”
Big Set Collector
With the 1952 Bowman set checked off his list, Gray is currently trying to complete a set of 1934-36 Diamond Stars. He’s knocked out 92% of that 108-card set.
Gray enjoys collecting oddball releases. He has finished the 1910 T220 Champions boxing set as well as the 1988 Allen & Ginter Pirates of the Spanish Main series (N19) set.
Gray doesn’t have a set he considers a Holy Grail that he would like to tackle. He has some big-name individual cards he would like to cross off his list.
“I’d love to own a Babe Ruth card and a Lou Gehrig card, being a big Yankees fan,” Gray said. “Again, the prices of those have really, really gone through the roof as far as the old, original stuff. I have modern cards of those guys, of course, but nothing from their playing years.”
While Gray searches for opportunities to find some of his treasured singles, he’ll continue to enjoy his 1952 Bowman set. He considers the 72-year-old release one of the top five sets in his collection.
“That’s what I’ve always shot for in my collecting is to try and get more unique things,” Gray said. “A lot of the non-sports stuff, especially. If you start diving into some of that, some of that is really, really scarce. And really cool, too.”
