Want an ownership piece of Mickey Mantle’s childhood home just off old Route 66 in Commerce, Oklahoma? A collectibles investment firm is offering it for $7 a share.
Mantle wore No. 7 when he played his fabled major-league baseball career with the New York Yankees.
The Rally firm set up a website — at themantlehouse.com — to purchase the shares beginning Oct. 27 as an initial public offering, The IPO cap is $327,000, or 47,000 shares.
ESPN, which broke the story, reports:
Rally has said in a regulatory filing that it plans to convert the house, which it bought for $175,000 in 2022, into a museum.
Company officials also see potential for Airbnb-style short-term rentals, a market for trading cards with pieces of the property embedded in them, and the construction of a little league field on the property. […]
Rally plans to keep between 1% and 5% ownership in the house. Since purchasing the property, the company has spent about $50,000 on refurbishments and maintenance and expects monthly operating costs going forward. […]
Rally also intends to offer free shares in the property to city residents. The company has set aside about 2,200 shares for residents, which Rally is paying for to avoid diluting the value of other shares.
The modest Mantle home sits on C Street only two blocks east of North Main Street, an older alignment of Route 66 in Commerce. A shed on the side of the property was where Mantle took batting practice with his father.
Mantle has a street named after him in Commerce, and a big statue of him was erected near the high school ball diamond about 15 years ago.
Mantle’s Route 66 roots ran deep. He often played ball in nearby Baxter Springs, Kansas, and in the minor leagues in Joplin, Missouri — both Route 66 towns.
Mantle was baseball’s best player of the 1950s (only Willie Mays was close) and was one of the best of the 1960s. He was voted Most Valuable Player three times; won the Triple Crown in 1956 by leading the American League in home runs, RBI and batting average; earned a Gold Glove as a center fielder; led the league in home runs four times; hit more than 500 career home runs; and earned seven World Series rings.
He also was baseball’s best switch-hitter ever, bar none. If you want to see Mantle’s jaw-dropping statistics, go here.
Mantle, whose remarkable career was slowed somewhat by injuries, retired after the 1968 season. He died of cancer in 1995.
(Image of the Mickey Mantle home in Commerce, Oklahoma, by Brent Moore via Flickr)