On June 18, 1956, Sports Illustrated put Mickey Mantle on its cover for the first time, capturing the Yankees' switch-hitting phenom in the middle of the finest season of his career. That summer, Mantle was in the process of authoring his legendary 1956 Triple Crown campaign, finishing the year with a .353 batting average, 52 home runs, and 130 RBI, a performance that also earned him American League MVP honors and cemented his status as the game's brightest young star.

Offered here is this historic issue, Sports Illustrated Vol. 4, No. 25, featuring a striking close-up cover portrait of Mantle in his Yankees cap and pinstriped jersey beneath the "Weekly Sports Illustrated" masthead, priced at 25 cents on newsstands. This particular copy was a subscription issue, distributed without the centerfold pages (37-43) and bearing an original mailing label addressed to a subscriber in Rockville, Maryland. Graded PSA 8.0, this is recognized as the single highest-graded example in the PSA population report, with a clean cover, sharp corners, and white-to-white pages that belie nearly seven decades of age.

As Mantle's first-ever Sports Illustrated cover, timed to the summer of his greatest individual season, this magazine holds significant crossover appeal for Mantle collectors and vintage sports media enthusiasts alike. A top-condition example of a landmark piece of Mantle and Yankees publishing history