1952 Topps Mickey Mantle #311

While this Mantle card boasts wonderful print registration and vivid color, its off-centered nature lends it a certain imperfect charm. Yet despite that visual appeal, there is not enough Goo Gone to salvage this eye appeal review.

Beautiful card. What it could’ve been without the tape marks.

This a really interesting example of a card that received the lowest technical numerical grade, but has a lot going for it outside of tape stains. The colors are great, as are the corners. Ultimately, this falls in the "C" range for me, which means the eye appeal firmly exceeds the technical grade.

Man this was a DIFFICULT card to assess in terms of eye appeal. Kind of fascinating case. On one hand, my eye is drawn hard to the tape. Yet after that, the clean, smooth surface and imaculate blue and even the white borders start to work together to charm you. Those aspects sweet talked me all the way up to C+, which is strong for a 1, which should logically be an F. If the tape was only on the bottom left, this would be even higher.

Wow and what a shame. This card Pops and the Colors and image is really sharp. Borders and corners are good but WOW that tape really drags it down. The placement is not the worst and I would love to have the card but the tape just draws my eyes for the wrong reasons