Yankees Action pack photos ID help.

Moonshotmoose

Hey guys ! Is this in anyones wheelhouse ? I’m trying to pinpoint this envelope but can’t find any matches. It doesn’t match the 56 or 57 Yankees versions.

1951WheatiesPremium

This is the best answer I can give you.

First, PSA will grade the Mickey Mantle you showed me as a 1957 NY Yankees Action Picture. If that’s what you’d like to know, you can stop reading.

If your still here? A word.

I am a hobbyist and an excellent researcher. As any good researcher will tell you, you draw conclusions from the facts you have. Astronomy recently tossed Pluto out of planethood when new information came to light; so if new info comes to light, things could change. That said, just recognize that I am giving you what I have put together based on my collecting and research but I’m not one who bought it in the 1950’s from the source and won’t pretend to be.

I believe changing your mind in light of new quality information is a good thing; it used to be referred to as ‘intelligence’, after all. 😉

Without further ado, here’s what I have learned about your set.

First, most, if not all, of these 8x10 issues came one way or another from Manny’s Baseball Land. Manny’s opened around 1950 and sold all manner of collectibles out of the store and through a national mailing list. In addition, they also seemed to have made these available to teams, in bulk and on discount, for them to sell inside stadiums. It is my understanding that these ones from inside the stadium are known as NY Yankees Action Pictures and came with the names on the envelope already. Manny’s typically came in a blank envelope in store or a similar blank envelope from MBL that was addressed and mailed to the customer.

A look into Manny’s history will tell you this guy hustled his rear end off selling everything he could - both with and without official permission - so the dating is really only possible when you have a complete, intact set. And to make matters worse, in some later years based on looking at their ads and order forms, you could custom order a set of 12 players from different teams! And eras!

The other difficult issue as it relates to dating is the the Standard Catalog called (and technically still calls) this pose 1956…

…and so I think PSA slabbed it as such when Jumbo’s were launched for someone as the first Action Photo (actually labeled Action Packed, if memory serves); I think that, in hindsight, that probably was incorrect by both PSA and the Standard Catalog, who only has one other set like this listed - the 1960. NYY Action pictures.

Realistically, it probably would have been more correct to put a range of dates on these as there are actually three or four distinct Mantle poses that were released from Manny’s, with varying thickness of stock as well. The ones that are the early 1950’s releases tended to be on a comparatively thicker stock (akin to a postcard) and the 1960 (and later) releases were on something closer to a glossy magazine page stock and are ID’d collectively as NYY Action Pictures.

I believe the one already pictured, if on a thick stock, is from 1955-56 and then I would have called the one that you have shown me privately 1956-57. For outside interested parties, it looks like this:

As of 1960, they went back to the original pose but on the aforementioned very thin stock. Full set looks like this:

Lastly, there’s the 1961 and 1965-66 Manny’s Baseball Land sets. Many similar poses, new fonts, new PSA name designation for the 1961 Manny’s (PSA doesn’t grade 65-66) and the complete sets look like this:

1961 Manny’s Baseball Land

1965-66 Manny’s Baseball Land

I hope this all helps and feel free to bounce more questions or information back my way.

By the way, you got a name, good sir?

Best,

Tim

1951WheatiesPremium

🤣😁😂

bswhiten

Tim, as always great Mantle input
For some reason PSA changed the certs for the 1957 NYY Action Pictures to 1957 NYY Picture Pack as of this past Friday. IMO it should have stayed like it was to match the envelope as issued. Pics of the 57 and 60 set with envelopes below.

57 set

60 set

56 as slabbed by PSA is a higher res image - notice hat.

60

1951WheatiesPremium

@bswhiten said:
Tim, as always great Mantle input
For some reason PSA changed the certs for the 1957 NYY Action Pictures to 1957 NYY Picture Pack as of this past Friday. IMO it should have stayed like it was to match the envelope as issued. Pics of the 57 and 60 set with envelopes below.

57 set

60 set

56 as slabbed by PSA is a higher res image - notice hat.

60

Ben,

I told him to run his questions by you, too. But I think he was out after the initial ID.

Guy just threw down the Batman smoke pellets and bounced…

Thanks for the kind words and added images.

Be good, brother.

Best,

Tim

1951WheatiesPremium

@bswhiten

I’ve said it before privately but I think PSA should form ‘information panels’ by gathering people who know a player or a set or an issue really well, bring them together on a Zoom and allow that group to help “outsource” some research work for PSA.

If they put the right guys together? There’s probably 35-50 legitimate items that could be spec’d, slabbed and sent starting today.

Most cardboard junkies take their knowledge with them when they go, you know?

Share, baby, share!

😁

bswhiten

Guy just threw down the Batman smoke pellets and bounced…

Haha! Maybe he wanted to hear it was the most valuable thing out there

1951WheatiesPremium

@bswhiten said:

Guy just threw down the Batman smoke pellets and bounced…

Haha! Maybe he wanted to hear it was the most valuable thing out there

That is odd about the changing Action Picture designation. I wonder why?

Then again, there a lot of times I’ve been left wondering. Still, I must say based on first hand experience that the research department at PSA is most excellent and thorough and every person I have ever been lucky enough to have worked with was incredibly competent and cordial. So, I’m sure they have their reasons and I know they have access to more resources and information than I do.

Good luck out there to one of the best finder of rare antiquities I have encountered since Henry Jones, Jr.

Moonshotmoose

Thanks for the info, gents! I sent it off to PSA. Sorry for the delayed response to the forum I am a teacher school year just started, as well as some college courses I teach.

I appreciate the info on this.

Moonshotmoose

Moonshotmoose

Hi Everyone! These are all the pics from the pack. Sorry for the quality issues. I scanned in HQ images from my scanner, but they seemed to get modified in compression while uploading here. I will try to recan scan in smaller file sizes.

1951WheatiesPremium

@bswhiten

Do you think the Rizzuto / Stengel swap is an indicator the difference between ‘56 and ‘57?

bswhiten

Hey Tim, 56 used a different image for Mantle in my set. I have no doubt that the 57 action pics were used in multiple years. It is just that SCD checklisted them as 57.