1961 Topps #478 Roger Maris
About this card
Cards #471-486 are the Most Valuable Players subset - sixteen tributes to past MVP winners, American League #471-478 and National League #479-486, each printed with the franchise of the MVP season.
About Roger Maris
Topps put Maris at #2 in its opening series; the season behind the card brought .283, 39 home runs, a league-best 112 RBI and a Gold Glove in right field as the Yankees took the pennant. Card #44, the A.L. Home Run Leaders card in Topps' first-ever League Leaders run, lines him up with Mickey Mantle, Jim Lemon and Rocky Colavito after Mantle edged him 40-39 for the 1960 title. Card #478 salutes the MVP award in the Most Valuable Players subset and falls in the sixth series. Card #576, his Sporting News All-Star, sits in the seventh series - a genuine high number and the scarcest of his four cards here.
Roger Maris broke in with the Cleveland Indians in April 1957, moved to the Kansas City Athletics in a June 1958 trade, and joined the Yankees in a seven-player deal on December 11, 1959. In 1960 he hit .283 with 39 home runs and led the American League in RBI with 112 and in slugging at .581, taking a Gold Glove in right field and the first of two straight Most Valuable Player awards. The next season he ran down Babe Ruth's single-season home run record, finishing 1961 with 61 homers, a league-best 141 RBI and a major-league-best 132 runs in the first American League year of a 162-game schedule. Commissioner Ford Frick wanted the mark listed apart unless it came inside 154 games; no asterisk was ever printed, and committees in 1968 and 1991 affirmed it. An All-Star every year from 1959 through 1962, he won World Series titles with the Yankees in 1961 and 1962, went to the St. Louis Cardinals for Charley Smith in December 1966, won a third in 1967, and retired after 1968 with 275 home runs. The Yankees retired his number 9 in 1984. Diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma in 1983, he died on December 14, 1985, at 51, and is not in the National Baseball Hall of Fame.
Sources: Wikipedia · SABR BioProject · Baseball-Reference · Baseball Almanac (1) · Baseball Almanac (2)
Graded population (PSA & SGC)
| Grader | Total | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 1-4 | Auth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA | 2,695 | 0 | 22 | 280 | 540 | 611 | 504 | 734 | 4 |
| SGC | 971 | 0 | 0 | 15 | 131 | 160 | 244 | 415 | 6 |
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 Roger Maris in this set: #2, #44 League Leaders, #576 Sporting News All-Stars
Team card: #228 New York Yankees Team
More New York Yankees cards:
- #2 Roger Maris
- #19 Cletis Boyer
- #28 Hector Lopez
- #40 Bob Turley
- #68 Deron Johnson
- #104 John Blanchard
- #116 Joe DeMaestri
- #133 Ralph Houk
- #142 Luis Arroyo
- #160 Whitey Ford
- #180 Bobby Richardson
- #213 Bill Stafford
- #252 Bill Short
- #265 Tony Kubek
Frequently asked questions
What is the 1961 Topps #478 card?
It is card #478 of the 587-card 1961 Topps Baseball set, picturing Roger Maris of the New York Yankees. Cards #471-486 are the Most Valuable Players subset - sixteen tributes to past MVP winners, American League #471-478 and National League #479-486, each printed with the franchise of the MVP season.
Why is #478 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.