1961 Topps #120 Ed Mathews
About Ed Mathews
Two Mathews cards open the 1961 set. Card 43 is a league leaders entry for 1960 home runs, placing him alongside Ernie Banks, whose 41 led the National League, Hank Aaron at 40 and Ken Boyer at 32; Mathews' own 39 put him third in the league. His base card 120, a second-series number, backs up the same year in full: .277 with 39 homers, 124 RBI, 111 walks and a .397 on-base percentage for a Milwaukee club that went 88-66 and finished second to Pittsburgh. He was a National League All-Star in 1960, one of the years the schedule carried two All-Star Games.
Edwin Lee Mathews was born in Texarkana, Texas, raised in Santa Barbara, California, and signed with the Boston Braves for a $6,000 bonus minutes after his 1949 high school graduation. He beat out Bob Elliott for the third-base job in 1952 and hit 25 homers as a 20-year-old rookie. The club moved to Milwaukee in 1953 and he became the new city's first baseball hero, batting .302 with career highs of 47 home runs and 135 RBI; he cleared 30 homers in nine straight seasons. He led the National League in home runs in 1953 and 1959, finished second in the MVP voting both years, was an All-Star in nine seasons and made the cover of the first Sports Illustrated. His tenth-inning homer won Game Four of the 1957 World Series and the Braves took the Yankees in seven. He and Hank Aaron combined for 863 home runs as teammates, the most by any pair in history, and he is the only man to play for the Braves in Boston, Milwaukee and Atlanta. Dealt to Houston after 1966, he became the seventh player to reach 500 home runs, then closed out with the 1968 world champion Tigers, retiring with 512 homers and 2,315 hits. Cooperstown elected him in 1978, on his fifth ballot; he later managed Atlanta.
Sources: Wikipedia · SABR BioProject · Baseball-Reference · Baseball Almanac (1) · Baseball Almanac (2) · Baseball Almanac (3) · Baseball Almanac (4) · Baseball Almanac (5) · Trading Card Database
Graded population (PSA & SGC)
| Grader | Total | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 1-4 | Auth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA | 2,448 | 0 | 35 | 335 | 672 | 595 | 375 | 432 | 4 |
| SGC | 698 | 0 | 4 | 29 | 130 | 167 | 177 | 186 | 5 |
Graded population — a scarcity guide, not a price. Data as of 2026-09-04. PSA counts are straight grades only; PSA half grades (PSA 1.5 among them) and qualified slabs are not included. SGC half grades fold down (8.5→8). Slabs of the two cards printed #463 are joined by description, never by number alone.
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Related cards
More Ed Mathews in this set: #43 League Leaders
Team card: #463b Milwaukee Braves Team
More Milwaukee Braves cards:
- #29 Don Nottebart
- #61 Ron Piche
- #73 Al Spangler
- #84 Lee Maye
- #89 Billy Martin
- #105 Carl Willey
- #137 Chuck Dressen
- #145 Bob Buhl
- #164 Felix Mantilla
- #183 Andre Rodgers
- #200 Warren Spahn
- #217 Mel Roach
- #245 Joe Adcock
- #261 Charlie Lau
Frequently asked questions
What is the 1961 Topps #120 card?
It is card #120 of the 587-card 1961 Topps Baseball set, picturing Ed Mathews of the Milwaukee Braves.
How many cards are in the 1961 Topps Baseball set?
587 cards, tracked as 596 collectible states. Numbers run from 1 to 589, but #426, #587 and #588 were never issued and two different cards were printed #463 - Jack Fisher and the Milwaukee Braves Team card, catalogued 463b - and eight cards carry catalogued print variations that the master set counts separately.
Sources: Trading Card Database, PSA CardFacts, Cardboard Connection, The Topps Archives, Baseball-Reference, the SABR BioProject and the National Baseball Hall of Fame, PSA & SGC population reports. Card data compiled and maintained by T206Cards.com. Page last updated 2026-10-05.