This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 11/11/2016
Had Topps begun an all out effort into the baseball card market just a year earlier, they could have been responsible for producing rookie cards of Willie Mays and Mickey Mantle, issues that no doubt would stand among the top 10 greatest baseball cards ever produced. After all, Topps has a long track record of jumping into the market or changing up their product when a "breakthrough" player was about to make their debut (1957 - Bill Russell, 1965 - Joe Namath, 1969 - Lew Alcindor, etc...) and with the 19-year old Mays posting a combined .393 batting average over 116 games between class B and class AA ball, it would have seemed like the perfect opportunity to launch their new product. But that honor ended up in the hands of Bowman, and the featured example of "The Say Hey Kid's" introductory pasteboard has earned a grade of NM 7 by PSA. Though lightly favoring the bottom horizontal edge, this beauty offers a stunning image of the future baseball legend that is clean and well-delivered, save for some print irregularities in the black nameplate. The corners and edges have no problem meeting the stringent demands of the NM classification while the reverse is problem free and offers deep red and blue print on the gray cardboard stock. It's a card that brings instant notoriety to any collector who owns it, and that could be you!