1962 Topps #42 Jim King
Uncorrected error: The back says he "tore the A.A. apart" - the league was the Western League
About Jim King
Card #42 is a first-series issue, and it arrives with King's first year as an original Senator behind him: .270 with a .363 on-base mark, 11 home runs and 46 RBIs in 110 games. He had made the club out of spring training despite a shoulder injury, and played regularly only after Marty Keough lost his starting job in May. His first two Washington home runs, on May 13 and 14, cleared the 31-foot right-field wall at Griffith Stadium - long a torment for left-handed hitters - and shut out Boston twice. General manager Ed Doherty liked what he saw well enough to turn down a Minnesota offer of Jim Lemon for him.
James Hubert King, a left-handed hitter born August 27, 1932 in Elkins, Arkansas, broke in with the Chicago Cubs in 1955 and later played for the Cardinals and the Giants, starting in left field in the first major league game played in California on April 15, 1958. Two seasons with Toronto of the International League followed, the second of them good enough - 24 home runs, 86 RBIs, a .384 on-base percentage - to win him the 1960 league Most Valuable Player award. Cleveland bought him and then left him unprotected, and the expansion Washington Senators took him in the December 1960 draft. He outlasted all 27 other original Senators draftees, staying in Washington until June 1967. His best season was 1963: career highs of 24 home runs and 62 RBIs. The next May he hit for the cycle at Fenway Park, the only cycle in that Washington franchise's eleven seasons. Teammates called him "Sky" King, for the television series and his dread of flying. His last game came September 24, 1967, closing 11 major league seasons at .240 with 117 home runs and 401 RBIs in 1,125 games. He went home to Elkins, spent 24 years with the local telephone company while raising cattle on his farm, and never boarded an airplane again.
Sources: Wikipedia · SABR BioProject · Baseball-Reference
Graded population (PSA & SGC)
| Grader | Total | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 1-4 | Auth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA | 265 | 0 | 8 | 125 | 90 | 29 | 8 | 5 | 0 |
| SGC | 12 | 0 | 1 | 3 | 4 | 2 | 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. 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
Team card: #206 Washington Senators Team
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- #27 Chuck Cottier
- #79 Ed Hobaugh
- #90 Jim Piersall
- #125 Gene Woodling
- #152 Mickey Vernon
- #207 Pete Burnside
- #228 Dale Long
- #262 Bob Schmidt
- #271 Ray Rippelmeyer
- #296 Ken Hamlin
- #324 Joe McClain
- #347 Chuck Hinton
- #378 Bennie Daniels
- #411 Danny O'Connell
Frequently asked questions
What is the 1962 Topps #42 card?
It is card #42 of the 600-card 1962 Topps Baseball set, picturing Jim King of the Washington Senators.
Does 1962 Topps #42 have an error?
The back says he "tore the A.A. apart" - the league was the Western League. It was never corrected, so there is no variation to chase - every copy of #42 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.