(LOT 1853)
1959 Rawlings Sporting Goods Catalog with Huge Full-Color Mantle Cover Portrait!

STRIKING RAWLINGS CATALOG!!! This finest, most desirable post-war Rawlings sporting goods catalog features a stunning artistic rendering of Mickey Mantle, blond locks flowing beneath the lid of his New York Yankees cap. Set against a lime-green background, this is one luscious piece of memorabilia! An incredible survivor, these catalogs were utilitarian in nature and meant to be used by company salesmen to sell products to sporting goods, toy stores, department stores and dealers. No amount of accolades can adequately reflect the humongous visual appeal of the offered relic. Now, nearly 65 years old, still in EX-MT condition, this likely-heavily handled 1959 Rawlings catalog shows minimal expected wear along the spine and at the page cover corners, but even the most fastidious condition-conscious advanced collector would still find it irresistible. We dare to compare such a piece of artistic aesthetics to his enormously skyrocketing baseball cards, and certainly the catalog will not achieve the bank-breaking astronomical hammer price of the earliest masterpiece cards, but it should! It’s rarity far exceeds any and all of his baseball card Pop Report numbers and its artwork is intoxicating. Surely one of Mantle’s finest pieces of memorabilia!