Favorite Cards of 2012 #8 - A Cliche, of sorts

As we continue the countdown of my favorite cards of the year, we come to this 1958 Mickey Mantle card.

This card didn't make it higher on the list because of how Topps has overdone Mickey Mantle.   Every year since 2005, card #7 in Topps Flagship has been Mickey Mantle.  Indeed, if you go to the search by player page at BaseballCardpedia, and plug in Mantle's name you will get 5,232 results.

Here is the breakdown by year of the number of Mantle cards issued (more text follows):

Year	Cards
1951	1
1952	5
1953	4
1954	5
1955	6
1956	5
1957	3
1958	5
1959	4
1960	9
1961	9
1962	14
1963	9
1964	14
1965	5
1966	3
1967	9
1968	4
1969	4
1970	1
1971	1
1972	1
1973	2
1975	2
1976	5
1977	3
1978	2
1979	2
1980	6
1981	1
1982	15
1983	7
1984	6
1985	4
1986	19
1987	3
1988	3
1989	25
1990	11
1991	19
1992	32
1993	2
1994	56
1995	8
1996	147
1997	93
1998	29
1999	15
2000	22
2001	122
2002	71
2003	73
2004	67
2005	109
2006	1980
2007	1092
2008	695
2009	36
2010	70
2011	78
2012	179
Grand Total	5232

Did you catch that?  Of all those cards, only 114 were issued during his playing career.

So, while Mantle was a great player, and I do love this card, I think his cachet has been devalued by Topps' insistence on adding him to every freaking set they issue.  The value of this card for me was that it was the card that made me realize that I could own great vintage cards if I bargain hunted and, in retrospect, was the catalyst for my decision to finally eschew collecting virtually all modern cards.