(LOT 41)
1949 Bowman #24 Stan Musial PSA 9 MINT
STAN THE MAN GEM!!!... Some 1,700+ encapsulated 1949 Bowman #24 Stan Musial subjects currently reside on the combined PSA and SGC Pop Charts, with not a single example managing to achieve a 10 GEM MINT assessment. Indeed, no 10 exists, with only ten PSA specimens achieving the miraculous 9 assessment. The St. Louis Cardinals called up their 20-year-old phenom Stan Musial in 1941, who in only 49 plate appearances, provided a glimpse of things to come by posting an incredible .426 average. Stan the Man was here to stay, and interestingly enough, there are no baseball cards of the immortal Musial from that rookie era, with his inaugural mainstream cards issued some seven years later by the Bowman and Leaf Gum Companies.
This PSA 9s remarkable qualities are synonymous with Musial's uncanny lifetime statistics including a .331 average, 3,630 hits, 475 home runs, nearly 2,000 RBIs, seven batting titles, three MVPs and an amazing 24 All-Star game appearances. A perfect testament to this Hall of Famer's batting excellence, Musial's imposing batting pose literally bursts off the card via the richly hued violet background. Yet, the most amazing feature is the virtually never-seen near-perfect centering, with a majority of 1949 Bowmans revealing skewed images. Near-immaculate surfaces, blisteringly sharp corners, and the lack of any obtrusive blemishes prompt the notion that an eager youth just pulled this miraculous heirloom from a 1949 Bowman wax pack at their local mom and pop store. Musial's momentous second-year issue, its hallowed stature is substantiated by another PSA 9 example fetching $28K in 2022!
MIN BID $5,000
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