1962 Topps #524 Howie Nunn
The back of this card starts a season for him with the Mets a year early. New York did not field a team until 1962, and that is the spring he spent in their camp before Cincinnati took him back.
Uncorrected error: The back says he started the '61 season with the Mets - it was 1962, the Mets' first season
About Howie Nunn
Nunn went to camp in 1962 with the first-year New York Mets and even posed in their uniform that spring, but he was returned to Cincinnati's organization before opening day. The Reds used him six times in relief, 9 2/3 innings with a 5.59 ERA, and his final major league outing came on June 7; he finished the year with San Diego in the Pacific Coast League. This card, number 524, sits in the seventh series, a short-printed high number and the harder of his two cards here to track down. Its back slips a year on the Mets story, placing it in 1961, a season before that club existed.
Howard Ralph Nunn - "Howie" in the record books, "Perry" to teammates who liked his singing voice - was a right-handed pitcher from Westfield, North Carolina, born October 18, 1935. He signed with the St. Louis Cardinals in 1954 as an eighteen-year-old and built a nine-season minor league record of 112-58, including a 23-7 year in the Class C California League, an 18-win season at Johnson City in the Class D Appalachian League and a 16-win year in the Double-A Texas League. He debuted for the Cardinals on April 11, 1959, and St. Louis sold him to Cincinnati after that season; a 1.99 ERA in the Triple-A International League in 1960 put him in the Reds bullpen at Crosley Field the next spring. Every one of his 46 big league games came in relief, and he finished 4-3 with a 5.11 ERA and 50 strikeouts in 68 2/3 innings, his last appearance coming June 7, 1962. He was a teammate and briefly a roommate of pitcher-author Jim Brosnan, and he turns up in Brosnan's diaries The Long Season and Pennant Race. Nunn went home to Westfield after baseball and managed a small machine shop there. He died February 17, 2012, in Winston-Salem at 76.
Sources: Wikipedia · Baseball-Reference
Graded population (PSA & SGC)
| Grader | Total | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 1-4 | Auth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA | 238 | 0 | 6 | 80 | 93 | 43 | 8 | 8 | 0 |
| SGC | 24 | 0 | 1 | 6 | 10 | 4 | 2 | 0 | 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. 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 #524 card?
It is card #524 of the 600-card 1962 Topps Baseball set, picturing Howie Nunn of the Cincinnati Reds.
Does 1962 Topps #524 have an error?
The back says he started the '61 season with the Mets - it was 1962, the Mets' first season. It was never corrected, so there is no variation to chase - every copy of #524 reads the same way.
Why is #524 harder to find?
It is a high number card (cards 523-598) from the seventh print series, distributed last and in the smallest quantity - the toughest cards in the set and home to all 42 short prints and the Rookie Parade. It is also a short print card (42 cards, all in 523-598). Printed in smaller quantity than the rest of the seventh series.
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.