1961 Topps #277 Hank Foiles
About Hank Foiles
The Orioles had him for exactly one year, and this is the card that shows it. Baltimore plucked Foiles off Detroit's roster in the Rule 5 draft on November 28, 1960, and used him as the backup behind the plate in 1961. He answered with .274 hitting, 6 home runs and 19 RBIs in 43 games - six homers in 124 at-bats, his most since 1958 - and was close to spotless in the field, one error in 38 games for a .995 mark. Card #277 lands in the third series, a plain mid-set number.
Henry Lee Foiles Jr. (1929-2024) was a right-handed catcher from Richmond, Virginia, raised in Norfolk, where he starred in football and baseball at Granby High School. Signed by the New York Yankees in November 1947, he was taken by the Cincinnati Reds in the 1951 Rule 5 draft and debuted in the majors in April 1953. After bouncing between Cincinnati, the Cleveland Indians and the minor leagues, he landed in Pittsburgh in a May 1956 trade for Preston Ward, and his arm and glove made him one of the National League's better defensive catchers. His finest season came in 1957, when he hit .270 with 9 home runs and 36 RBIs and was picked for the National League All-Star team, singling as a pinch hitter and scoring in the ninth inning of a 6-5 loss. He caught more than 100 games again in 1958 before Smoky Burgess took the job in 1959. Then came the churn: 1960 alone sent him from Kansas City to Pittsburgh to Cleveland to Detroit. He closed an eleven-year career in 1964 with a .243 average, 46 home runs and a .986 fielding mark, is credited as the first big leaguer to play in contact lenses, and was inducted into the Virginia Sports Hall of Fame in 1987.
Sources: Wikipedia · Baseball-Reference · Baseball Almanac (1) · Baseball Almanac (2) · Retrosheet
Graded population (PSA & SGC)
| Grader | Total | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 1-4 | Auth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA | 357 | 1 | 45 | 189 | 85 | 19 | 11 | 7 | 0 |
| SGC | 11 | 0 | 1 | 9 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
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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Team card: #159 Baltimore Orioles Team
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Frequently asked questions
What is the 1961 Topps #277 card?
It is card #277 of the 587-card 1961 Topps Baseball set, picturing Hank Foiles of the Baltimore Orioles.
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.