1962 Topps #231 Ernie Bowman
The card back prints the wrong birth year. Bowman was born in 1935.
Uncorrected error: The back gives the wrong birth year - Bowman was born in 1935
About Ernie Bowman
Card #231 is Bowman's recognized rookie card, a third-series issue. The record behind it is thin: a 1961 debut season of 38 games and 38 at-bats, most of them as a pinch runner or a late-inning infield replacement, batting .211 with two triples. The card was in packs while he did the most memorable thing he ever did on a ball field. On August 23, 1962, at the Polo Grounds, he hit his only major league home run, then singled home the winning run in extra innings, his two hits accounting for both San Francisco runs in a 2-1 win over the Mets during the pennant drive. The back of the card prints the wrong birth year.
Ernest Ferrell Bowman was born July 28, 1935, in Johnson City, Tennessee, the second son of a father who worked in flour mills and hosiery factories and who chose the middle name to honor the ballplaying Ferrell brothers. Ernie went by Ferrell himself into his early twenties. A star at Science Hill High School in basketball, track and baseball, he took a basketball scholarship at East Tennessee State, and when the coach there kept him off the diamond he played semipro ball across the line in Abingdon, Virginia, where the scouts found him. He signed with the New York Giants in 1956. A right-handed infielder with tremendous range and a strong throwing arm, Bowman called defense his specialty, and the glove is what carried him: 165 games for the San Francisco Giants between 1961 and 1963, a .190 average, one home run and ten runs batted in. Six more minor league seasons followed before he retired in 1969. Back home he refereed basketball, worked as an assistant golf pro and spent decades in the Johnson City parks department. He entered the Northeast Tennessee Sports Hall of Fame in 1993 and died August 4, 2019.
Sources: Wikipedia · SABR BioProject · Baseball-Reference
Graded population (PSA & SGC)
| Grader | Total | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 1-4 | Auth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA | 240 | 0 | 8 | 118 | 86 | 18 | 7 | 3 | 0 |
| SGC | 13 | 0 | 2 | 8 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 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. 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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Frequently asked questions
What is the 1962 Topps #231 card?
It is card #231 of the 600-card 1962 Topps Baseball set, picturing Ernie Bowman of the San Francisco Giants.
Is 1962 Topps #231 a rookie card?
Yes - #231 is the 1962 Topps rookie card of Ernie Bowman.
Does 1962 Topps #231 have an error?
The back gives the wrong birth year - Bowman was born in 1935. It was never corrected, so there is no variation to chase - every copy of #231 reads the same way.
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.