1961 Topps #424 Turk Lown
About Turk Lown
Topps put Lown at #424 in the fifth series of its 1961 set, a Chicago White Sox card - he had been in the majors since 1951. It reached collectors in the middle of a late-career swing. Lown had slipped in 1960, pitching only 45 games with a 2-3 record, five saves and a 3.88 ERA while the White Sox finished third, ten games out. Then came 1961, the last strong season of his career: 59 appearances, a 7-5 record, 11 saves and a 2.76 earned run average, right back at the level of his pennant-winning 1959 work.
Omar Joseph "Turk" Lown was a right-handed pitcher from Brooklyn, New York, who spent parts of 11 major league seasons with the Chicago Cubs, Cincinnati Reds and Chicago White Sox between 1951 and 1962. He was called Turk as a child for his fondness for eating turkey. The Brooklyn Dodgers signed him in 1942, but World War II interrupted his climb: he served three years as an Army infantryman, was wounded by shrapnel in the Battle of the Bulge and received the Purple Heart. The Cubs drafted him out of the Dodgers system in November 1950, and after failing as a starter he was moved to the bullpen for good in 1953. Chicago traded him to Cincinnati in May 1958 and the Reds sold him to the White Sox that June, pairing him with Gerry Staley in Al Lopez's bullpen. In 1959 Lown went 9-2 with a league-leading 15 saves and a 2.89 ERA as the pair drove Chicago to its first pennant in 40 years, and he allowed no runs in three appearances of a World Series the White Sox lost to the Dodgers in six games. He finished 55-61 with 73 saves and a 4.12 ERA in 504 games, then carried mail in Pueblo, Colorado, for 23 years before his death in 2016.
Sources: Wikipedia · SABR BioProject · Baseball-Reference · Baseball Almanac
Graded population (PSA & SGC)
| Grader | Total | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 1-4 | Auth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA | 272 | 0 | 20 | 113 | 98 | 27 | 9 | 4 | 1 |
| SGC | 10 | 0 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 1 | 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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Related cards
Team card: #7 Chicago White Sox Team
More Chicago White Sox cards:
- #30 Nellie Fox
- #56 Russ Kemmerer
- #79 Joe Ginsberg
- #90 Jerry Staley
- #124 J.C. Martin
- #132 Al Lopez
- #152 Earl Torgeson
- #157 Cal McLish
- #170 Al Smith
- #185 Herb Score
- #205 Bill Pierce
- #227 Juan Pizarro
- #247 Billy Goodman
- #271 Jim Landis
Frequently asked questions
What is the 1961 Topps #424 card?
It is card #424 of the 587-card 1961 Topps Baseball set, picturing Turk Lown of the Chicago White Sox.
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.