1962 Topps #169 Bob Cerv
About Bob Cerv
Card #169 is a second-series Yankee card; by the time it reached shelves Cerv's pinstriped days were nearly done. The knee he had operated on the previous September never came back, and he batted .118 in 14 games before New York sold him on June 26 to the expansion Houston Colt .45s. Houston got 19 games and a .226 average out of him, then released him on July 30, a day after his final big-league appearance. The card comes in two collectible states, one clean and one carrying a green tint across the design.
Bob Cerv was born in Weston, Nebraska, in 1925 and grew up in a Bohemian-American community before serving as a Navy radarman aboard the destroyer USS Claxton, which was struck by a kamikaze during the Battle of Leyte Gulf. At the University of Nebraska he became the school's first baseball All-American and the only Husker to earn four letters each in baseball and basketball. The Yankees signed him in 1950, and for most of the decade he shuttled between New York and their Kansas City farm club, unable to beat out Gene Woodling, Irv Noren, or Elston Howard for a starting outfield job despite piling up big minor-league numbers. He won a World Series ring with the Yankees in 1956, then was sold outright to the Kansas City Athletics, where everyday playing time finally let him produce: his 38 home runs in 1958 set the Athletics' club record and earned him an All-Star start over Ted Williams. He returned to the Yankees for stretches from 1960 to 1962, finishing a twelve-year career with 105 home runs. Cerv later coached college baseball at John F. Kennedy College in Wahoo, Nebraska, and managed the semipro Liberal BeeJays to a national championship in 1979; he entered the University of Nebraska Athletics Hall of Fame in 2021 and died in 2017.
Sources: Wikipedia · SABR BioProject · Baseball-Reference
Print variations
Two states of #169 are tracked individually: 169a - No Green Tint and 169b - Green Tint. The difference is on the front of the card (green tint).
States catalogued by the PSA master set registry; each is tracked here individually.
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Graded population (PSA & SGC)
| Grader | Total | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 1-4 | Auth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 169a - No Green Tint | |||||||||
| PSA | 313 | 0 | 4 | 65 | 131 | 66 | 29 | 18 | 0 |
| SGC | 22 | 0 | 1 | 6 | 7 | 5 | 2 | 1 | 0 |
| 169b - Green Tint | |||||||||
| PSA | 88 | 0 | 7 | 28 | 23 | 22 | 4 | 4 | 0 |
| SGC | 12 | 0 | 1 | 3 | 4 | 3 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
Graded population — a scarcity guide, not a price. Snapshot 2026-09-24. Half-grades fold down (8.5→8), and PSA's qualified grades are counted separately from the straight-grade rows shown here. Where a grader registers a variation separately its population is listed under that variation. Slabs of the three cards printed #139 are joined by description, never by number alone. PSA registers the green tints as a separate set; a tint's population is listed under that state of the card it belongs to.
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Related cards
Team card: #251 New York Yankees Team
More New York Yankees cards:
- #1 Roger Maris
- #18 Managers' Dream
- #31 Tom Tresh
- #48 Ralph Terry
- #65 Bobby Richardson
- #88 Ralph Houk
- #93 John Blanchard
- #110 Bill Skowron
- #136 Babe Ruth Special: Babe Joins Yanks
- #137 Babe Ruth Special: Babe and Mgr. Huggins
- #138 Babe Ruth Special: The Famous Slugger
- #139a Hal Reniff
- #139b Hal Reniff
- #139c Babe Ruth Special: Babe Hits 60
Frequently asked questions
What is the 1962 Topps #169 card?
It is card #169 of the 600-card 1962 Topps Baseball set, picturing Bob Cerv of the New York Yankees.
Does 1962 Topps #169 have variations?
Yes. Two states are catalogued and tracked separately: 169a - No Green Tint (No green tint - the standard first printing) and 169b - Green Tint (Green tint - the color-shifted second printing of series 2). Owning any one of them fills the #169 slot; the master set counts each state.
How many cards are in the 1962 Topps Baseball set?
600 cards, tracked as 708 collectible states. The numbers run from 1 to 598 with no gaps, but three different cards were printed #139 - two Hal Reniff poses, catalogued 139a and 139b, and the Babe Hits 60 Babe Ruth Special, 139c - so 598 numbers make 600 cards; 93 cards carry catalogued print variations, the series-2 green tints among them, that the master set counts separately.
Sources: Baseball Almanac, Trading Card Database, PSA CardFacts, Cardboard Connection, BaseballCardPedia, 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 2026-10-03.