1962 Topps #333 Frank Cipriani
About Frank Cipriani
Cipriani's lone Topps card of the decade carries the one big-league season he ever had: September 1961 with Kansas City, where right field had been a revolving door all year. Recalled from Double-A Shreveport, the 20-year-old started his debut on September 8 against Minnesota's Jim Kaat and singled twice, and he closed the year with two more singles off Claude Osteen on October 1. The final line reads .250, nine hits in 36 at-bats, every one of them a single, with two runs and two RBI in 13 games. Card #333 belongs to the fourth series of the 1962 set, and it is a recognized rookie card for a player who never returned to the majors.
Frank Cipriani was an outfielder from Buffalo, New York, who signed with the Kansas City Athletics in June 1960 for a bonus reported between $25,000 and $35,000, giving up a basketball scholarship at Fordham University after his freshman year. A right-handed hitter and thrower out of Bishop Timon High School, he won a Florida State League batting title in his first professional summer with the 1960 Sanford Greyhounds, hitting .335. A year at Double-A Shreveport followed, and the Athletics, on their way to a 100-loss season, brought the 20-year-old up that September for his only big-league service. He never made it back. Portland, Albuquerque, Binghamton, Lewiston and finally Tidewater filled out the rest of his career, with military duty, a broken leg and a separated shoulder costing him most of 1964; he left baseball after the 1966 season with a .288 minor league average. Back home he served 35 years as a lieutenant in the Lackawanna Fire Department and ran restaurants with his brother Mario. He died June 7, 2022, at 81.
Sources: Wikipedia · Baseball-Reference
Graded population (PSA & SGC)
| Grader | Total | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 1-4 | Auth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA | 192 | 0 | 6 | 72 | 86 | 18 | 6 | 4 | 0 |
| SGC | 14 | 0 | 2 | 6 | 5 | 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 #333 card?
It is card #333 of the 600-card 1962 Topps Baseball set, picturing Frank Cipriani of the Kansas City Athletics.
Is 1962 Topps #333 a rookie card?
Yes - #333 is the 1962 Topps rookie card of Frank Cipriani.
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.