Mantle 1968 Rawlings XPGH On eBay

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Mantle 1968 Rawlings XPGH On eBay

Postby HolyGrail » April 15th, 2017, 4:18 pm

Last August, I took some heat on the forum from a righteous reader for writing about a Ripon ambidextrous in my Forbes column that I bought on eBay for BIN for $20. (It's worth about $500). Since then, I've been on a bit of a mission to educate sellers untutored in vintage baseball gloves. In that spirit, I've been in contact with the seller of a super rare 1968 Mickey Mantle XPGH, advising him to keep his auction going rather than ending it early.

http://ebay.to/2oC7HAa

Although this example has tons of Magic Marker, the patch is perfect and the stamping is super sharp. As many of you know, the XPGH came out only in 1968, was top-of-the-line, and was the closest retail version to Mantles XPG6-H which Billy Crystal bought from Sotheby's in the 1999 Barry Halper auction for $239,000. I wrote an article for Joe Phillips' new Rawlings source book about this extreme rarity. The last time one sold on eBay, in the spring of 2014, the final price was $2,425-- surely a record for a post-war store model.

I wished the seller the best of luck and you, too, if you're bidding. His 95-year-old father, a longtime antique collector, picked the glove many years ago. He is frail, but getting a big kick out of all the excitement he is generating.

David
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Re: Mantle 1968 Rawlings XPGH On eBay

Postby HolyGrail » April 16th, 2017, 10:07 pm

Seller declined offers of $190 and $250. Glove sold for $432.
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Re: Mantle 1968 Rawlings XPGH On eBay

Postby okdoak » May 1st, 2017, 6:15 pm

It's just my opinion, but I think there's a big difference between coming across a lucky BIN and going out of one's way to to contact the seller and talking them into ending the auction early. In my experience, a lucky BIN is extremely rare, while offers to sell your item outright happen all the time, unfortunately. So far, as a buyer and a seller, I've managed to control my impulses to make an offer to end an auction and to refuse offers to end my auctions early. Who knows, I may change my tune as soon as someone actually offers me more for a glove than what I expect it to end at. I hope not. It's supposed to be an auction after all, and I still like to keep the naive notion that the rules of the auction should be followed.

I see that the winner of the Mantle glove is reselling it with a $9.99 opening and no reserve. My first thought is that he bought it just to flip it, but maybe I'm wrong about that. Maybe he has other reasons. Either way, I'm interested in seeing how it does this time around. Honestly, I'm surprised that it went for as much as it did with that amount of marker on the front of the glove. I know it's a rare, sought after model but that usually makes for a tough sell.

Congratulations on your Ripon find. I live about 30 miles from Ripon, WI. Years ago I contacted their Historical Society to try to find out more info about the glove making years at the old Ripon Leather Works. They knew nothing about it, but I may try again one of these days. They sure put out a variety of pretty well made gloves back in the day.
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