Beautiful Mickey Mantle Hand Painted George Sosnak Folk Art Baseball 1/1 Signed

Details

Elaborate folk-art tribute ball hand-painted by former minor-league umpire George Sosnak (1922-1992), commemorating the baseball career of Mickey Mantle. An illustration of Mantle’s Hall of Fame plaque appears on one panel. All of the remaining surface area features Sosnak’s meticulous hand-painted lettering that provides copious biographical information pertaining to Mantle’s career, including a year-by-year listing of his batting statistics. When creating a ball dedicated to a specific individual, Sosnak customarily began with a ball autographed by that person. He then incorporated the autograph within his design. Sosnak was a prolific artist, by some accounts creating over 800 illustrated baseballs, the popularity of his works has continued to grow with each passing decade. Those featuring iconic players, such as this example, have always been particularly highly prized by collectors. Sosnak is nearly as well known in the folk-art community as he is in the field of baseball collectibles, so it is no surprise that examples of his work can be found in both the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York, and the American Folk Art Museum in New York City. One of Sosnak’s balls (detailing JFK’s Opening Day pitch at a 1962 Senators game) can even be found in the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library. Near Mint condition. Full LOA from James Spence/JSA.

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