1962 Topps #491 Leon Wagner
About Leon Wagner
Everything peaked in 1962. Wagner homered nine times in the Angels' first 18 games and finished with career bests of 37 home runs - tied with Rocky Colavito for third in the American League - plus 107 RBIs, 164 hits, 21 doubles, and 96 runs while batting .268, good for fourth in the MVP voting. He played in both All-Star Games that summer and was voted MVP of the second, at Wrigley Field, going 3-for-4 with a two-run homer and robbing George Altman of extra bases in a 9-4 American League win. The award was new that year, and he was the first American Leaguer to win it. His 1962 Topps card, #491, is a sixth-series issue.
Leon Lamar Wagner (May 13, 1934 - January 3, 2004) was a left-handed-hitting outfielder who played twelve major-league seasons between 1958 and 1969 for the San Francisco Giants, St. Louis Cardinals, Los Angeles Angels, Cleveland Indians, and Chicago White Sox. New York Giants scout Ray Lucas signed him off a Michigan sandlot team in 1954, and he punished minor-league pitching - 51 home runs in the Carolina League in 1956 - while committing enough outfield errors to worry every manager he had. Blocked in San Francisco and St. Louis, he finally got a regular job with the expansion Angels in 1961 and became their first real slugger, peaking in 1962 with 37 home runs, 107 RBIs, a fourth-place MVP finish, and the All-Star Game MVP award, the first American Leaguer to win it. The press tagged him 'Daddy Wags' for the loose, below-the-waist wiggle he went through in the batter's box. Traded to Cleveland after the 1963 season, he anchored the Indians' outfield for three productive years, then slid into a platoon and pinch-hitting role as he turned 33. He finished at .272 with 211 home runs and 669 RBIs, and later sold cars and did public-relations work before his death in Los Angeles in 2004.
Sources: Wikipedia · SABR BioProject · Baseball-Reference · National Baseball Hall of Fame
Graded population (PSA & SGC)
| Grader | Total | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 1-4 | Auth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA | 210 | 0 | 5 | 72 | 84 | 31 | 12 | 6 | 0 |
| SGC | 16 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 7 | 2 | 4 | 1 | 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 #491 card?
It is card #491 of the 600-card 1962 Topps Baseball set, picturing Leon Wagner of the Los Angeles Angels.
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.