Authentication / Restoration
1964 Mickey Mantle Yankees Home Jersey
I’ll be very candid: when someone tells me that they have an original Mickey Mantle Yankees flannel jersey, I immediately mentally prepare myself for the disappointment I will need to share with its owner. There are not many actual Mantle jerseys, so actually seeing a real one is very slim.
Here's how we received it. The "NY" on the front looked off and there were no numbers on the back, but Mantle’s name was embroidered in the collar. The jersey was a Spalding, year-tagged as 1964.
Light table investigation showed that there was once a “7” on the back, and also a “57”. But wait, would the team truly send a game jersey of one of the most famous players in history to the minors to be reissued? With the Yankees, the answer is “positively yes”. These shirts were not priceless collectables, but simply “team owned equipment." Players were typically issued two sets of home and road jerseys for the year. Nothing like what happens today.
I *very* carefully removed the stitching holding the replacement NY on the front. Luckily, it was not glued on and came off without a fight. But unfortunately, its residence had stained the flannel fabric below after decades of contact with it. Having the jersey bare would be important for further light table investigation of the jersey's history.
A light table examination of the front shows that the NY logo is not the original one. Slight shadows exist of the original crest, but notably the entire left side of the chest was darker as if something else might have been glued there. I wondered, what team might have reused this jersey? On this photo, the red lines are the residual ghosts I can see. The blue outline is the Yankees template for a 1964 front crest. How about that!
Internet research turns up the probable answer: In 1964-1966 there was a short-lived Yankees minor league team improbably named the Columbus (Georgia) Confederate Yankees. Controversially, these uniforms had featured a Confederate flag on the sleeve.
I wondered: had this jersey been repurposed to the Confederate Yankees in 1965-1966? The light table provided the answer. While it is hard to see in low-resolution photos, there it was -- faint signs of the outline of Confederate flag having been sewn to the sleeve, perfectly sized and placed.
Now that we knew what we were looking for, spotting the edges of the discoloration on the left chest allowed us to pick out the points of the intersection of the Columbus Confederate Yankees crest that had been sewn there. There are also a few small holes exactly in the places that the stitching would have intersected between the old logo and the new.
This was getting exciting! My search of auction catalogs showed that this one hadn’t made the public auction scene before, at least not in the past twenty years. I also noted, with a gulp, that a corresponding 1964 Mantle ROAD jersey had sold at auction in August 2018 for $1.32 million dollars!
The darkened glue marks mostly came out of the fabric with a careful application of dry- cleaning chemicals. I worked gently to try to remove the blue staining, but succeeded only in lightening it slightly. This can not overly concern me: I believe that every mark left behind tells a story, and sometimes relics can be spoiled by trying too hard to make them perfect.
I re-created the original 1964 team pattern “NY” on front and #7 on back, in heirloom Merino wool felt. The original pattern matched the tell-tale ghosts perfectly! In the placement, I ensured that the new lettering covered the ghosts exactly before I stitched them on.
As a restorer and authenticator, I *always* recommend a separate Document of Restoration to chronicle this process whenever an original jersey is restored. Why? Because once the new lettering perfectly covers the old, only the shadows of what was once altered will be left behind. A future authenticator looking at this and conclude that this jersey was originally numbered as #57 and declare it a Mickey Mantle counterfeit! Our work-in-progress documentation is designed to prevent that from happening.
Exact restoration of the original elements was critical because our next step was to try to photo match this jersey being worn by Mantle. My sponsor is Sports Investors Authentications -- they are properly licensed to use the photographs they photo match from, are insured, and have an impeccable reputation for quality and honesty. I am proud to authenticate for them. We examined dozens of photos from the 1964 through 1966 seasons trying to find at least one photo that would provide a 100% positive match.
Based on the era, even though this jersey was tagged 1964, we knew to check photos from 1965 and even 1966 as this jersey may have served as a backup for Mantle. Everything must match: pinstripes, logo placement, seam alignment and even stitching. After several days of work, we were able to positively photo match the jersey to use in both 1964 and 1965! We can surmise that it went to Columbus, Georgia in 1966.
Mantle is also wearing the jersey in the photo on this 1965 card, taken in 1965 spring training. There is a positive match to the way the stripes align in the underarm gusset and the exact location of the vent holes.
It is also *possible* that our jersey is the same one that Mantle is wearing on the cover of this Sports Illustrated book cover, but professionally, we must leave that conclusion as unconfirmed. When photo matching, it is relatively easy to rule out images that don’t match, but confirming every tiny detail to ensure the match is 100% positive is much more difficult. On an item of this significance, being positive is critical. While I was 95% sure this is the same jersey, that wasn't good enough.
Here is my finished restoration. The customer told me that this jersey will be auctioned with Goldin Auctions in the near future. I am proud to have been a part of discovering its history and returning it to look as it did when Mickey Mantle wore it in the 1964-1965 seasons.