1961 Topps #450 Jim Lemon
About Jim Lemon
Nineteen-sixty was the best year of Lemon's life: a career-high 38 home runs, 100 RBIs, tenth place in the MVP vote, and at 32 his first trip to the All-Star Game, added to the roster only when teammate Camilo Pascual got hurt. Topps paid it off twice. Card #44 puts him in the 1960 American League home run leaders group, his 38 trailing only Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris, with Rocky Colavito rounding out the four. His own #450 shows him in a Minnesota Twins cap for the franchise's first season away from Washington; it belongs to the sixth series, tougher than the earlier cards.
James Robert Lemon was born March 23, 1928 in Covington, Virginia, the third of six children raised by a paper-mill millwright and his wife. Everybody called him Bob until Cleveland signed him out of Covington High School in 1947, and he took the name Jim to avoid confusion with Indians ace Bob Lemon. Two Army years in 1951 and 1952, spent mostly at Fort Meade, Maryland, cost him his swing, and the Indians sold him to the Washington Senators for a reported $20,000 in May 1954. The 6-foot-4 slugger finally won a regular job in 1956 at age 28 and held it through 1960, hitting at least 26 home runs four times and driving in exactly 100 runs in both 1959 and 1960. On August 31, 1956 he hit three straight homers off Whitey Ford with President Eisenhower in the Griffith Stadium stands, joining Joe DiMaggio as the only men to homer three times in that cavernous park. He moved with the franchise to Minnesota in 1961, but a shoulder injury took his power, and he retired after 1963 with 164 home runs and a .262 average. He coached the Twins in two stints, managed Washington in 1968, entered the Virginia Sports Hall of Fame in 1988, and died in 2006.
Sources: Wikipedia · SABR BioProject · Baseball-Reference · Baseball Almanac
Graded population (PSA & SGC)
| Grader | Total | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 1-4 | Auth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA | 314 | 0 | 16 | 143 | 96 | 31 | 22 | 6 | 0 |
| SGC | 12 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 6 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 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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Related cards
More Jim Lemon in this set: #44 League Leaders
Team card: #542 Minnesota Twins Team
More Minnesota Twins cards:
- #4 Lenny Green
- #21 Zorro Versalles
- #36 Jack Kralick
- #63 Jim Kaat
- #80 Harmon Killebrew
- #92 Hal Naragon
- #108 Dan Dobbek
- #123 Billy Gardner
- #153 Don Lee
- #186 Elmer Valo
- #201 Pete Whisenant
- #226 Harry Lavagetto
- #235 Camilo Pascual
- #254 Ted Sadowski
Frequently asked questions
What is the 1961 Topps #450 card?
It is card #450 of the 587-card 1961 Topps Baseball set, picturing Jim Lemon of the Minnesota Twins.
Why is #450 harder to find?
It is from the sixth print series (cards 447-522) - noticeably tougher than the first five, easier than the true highs.
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.