1962 Topps #240 George Altman
The card back prints the wrong birth year. Altman was born in 1933.
Uncorrected error: The back gives the wrong birth year - Altman was born in 1933
About George Altman
Card 240 in the 1962 Topps set is a third-series card. The back prints the wrong birth year; Altman was born in 1933. He then bettered his breakout, setting career highs with 147 games, 170 hits, a .318 average and 19 stolen bases while adding 22 home runs, and repeating as an All-Star for that season's second game. The Cubs still lost more than 100 games and finished ninth, and on October 17 Chicago sent him to St. Louis with Don Cardwell and Moe Thacker for Larry Jackson, Lindy McDaniel and Jimmie Schaffer.
George Lee Altman was born in Goldsboro, North Carolina, on March 20, 1933, and worked tobacco fields as a youth before basketball carried him to Tennessee A&I State University in Nashville, a school that had no baseball team until his junior year. He turned pro with the Kansas City Monarchs of the Negro American League in 1955 and signed with the Chicago Cubs that August on Buck O'Neil's recommendation. A 6-foot-4 left-handed hitter who threw right-handed, Altman reached the majors in 1959 after two minor league seasons split around Army service. Over nine big league years with the Cubs, Cardinals and Mets he batted .269 with 101 home runs and 403 runs batted in over 991 games, played all three outfield spots and first base, and was a National League All-Star in both 1961 and 1962. Nagging injuries cut the peak short. At 35 he went to Japan, where he spent eight seasons with the Tokyo/Lotte Orions and the Hanshin Tigers, hit 205 home runs and batted .309 before finishing at 42. He later traded commodities at the Chicago Board of Trade and settled in O'Fallon, Missouri, where he died on November 24, 2025, at 92.
Sources: Wikipedia · SABR BioProject · Baseball-Reference
Graded population (PSA & SGC)
| Grader | Total | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 1-4 | Auth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA | 180 | 0 | 6 | 73 | 68 | 21 | 8 | 4 | 0 |
| SGC | 9 | 0 | 1 | 3 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 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 #240 card?
It is card #240 of the 600-card 1962 Topps Baseball set, picturing George Altman of the Chicago Cubs.
Does 1962 Topps #240 have an error?
The back gives the wrong birth year - Altman was born in 1933. It was never corrected, so there is no variation to chase - every copy of #240 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.