1962 Topps #120 Bob Purkey
About Bob Purkey
Purkey's 1962 cards follow the pennant year: 16-12 with a 3.73 ERA, a place on both National League All-Star teams, and the Game Three assignment in the World Series, where he four-hit the Yankees into the eighth before Johnny Blanchard and Roger Maris beat him 3-2 with solo home runs. He worked two more innings in relief in Game Five as New York closed it out. His own card, No. 120, is a second-series number that collectors chase in two printing states, one showing a green tint and one without it. The third series added No. 263, "The Right Pitch," a combination card pairing him with Joey Jay and Reds pitching coach Jim Turner.
Bob Purkey was a right-handed Pittsburgh native who pitched thirteen big-league seasons, from 1954 through 1966, for the Pittsburgh Pirates, Cincinnati Reds, and St. Louis Cardinals. Signed by his hometown Pirates out of South Hills High School, he went 16-29 over four years for second-division Pittsburgh clubs; midway through that run, in 1955, general manager Branch Rickey sent him to the minors and taught him a knuckleball in ten pitches. The pitch made his name, though he insisted he was really a sinker and slider man who lived on control, walking just 2.2 batters per nine innings. A December 1957 trade to Cincinnati for Don Gross remade him: over seven Reds seasons he went 103-76, was picked for five All-Star squads across three summers, and anchored the 1961 pennant winners. His best year was 1962, when he finished 23-5 with a 2.81 ERA, led all major-league pitchers in winning percentage, and placed third in the balloting for the lone Cy Young Award. A sore arm in the spring of 1963 took the rest; he wound up 129-115 with 793 strikeouts and a 3.79 ERA, and Cincinnati elected him to the Reds Hall of Fame in 1974.
Sources: Wikipedia · SABR BioProject · Baseball-Reference
Print variations
Two states of #120 are tracked individually: 120a - No Green Tint and 120b - 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 120a - No Green Tint | |||||||||
| PSA | 175 | 0 | 6 | 43 | 73 | 38 | 10 | 5 | 0 |
| SGC | 11 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 4 | 4 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| 120b - Green Tint | |||||||||
| PSA | 39 | 0 | 2 | 13 | 12 | 5 | 4 | 2 | 1 |
| SGC | 5 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
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
More Bob Purkey in this set: #263 Combo
Team card: #465 Cincinnati Reds Team
More Cincinnati Reds cards:
- #2 Jim Brosnan
- #16 Darrell Johnson
- #41 Cliff Cook
- #80 Vada Pinson
- #103 Don Blasingame
- #148 Wally Post
- #151 Johnny Klippstein
- #171 Dave Sisler
- #172 Fred Hutchinson
- #193 Eddie Kasko
- #205 Gene Freese
- #233 World Series Game #2 - Jay Ties It Up
- #258 Marty Keough
- #263 The Right Pitch
Frequently asked questions
What is the 1962 Topps #120 card?
It is card #120 of the 600-card 1962 Topps Baseball set, picturing Bob Purkey of the Cincinnati Reds.
Does 1962 Topps #120 have variations?
Yes. Two states are catalogued and tracked separately: 120a - No Green Tint (No green tint - the standard first printing) and 120b - Green Tint (Green tint - the color-shifted second printing of series 2). Owning any one of them fills the #120 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.