1964 Topps #273 Mel Nelson
About Mel Nelson
A third-series card; his rookie card is the shared Rookie Stars panel of the year before. What it is, is Nelson's only solo Topps card in a Los Angeles Angels uniform, and the uniform is the whole story: he never threw a major league pitch in 1964. He opened the year with Hawaii in the Pacific Coast League, fought a sore arm, and after nine appearances the Angels sold his contract to the Minnesota Twins. Minnesota sent him to Atlanta of the International League, where he answered with a 2.96 ERA across 24 games, 23 of them starts.
Melvin Frederick Nelson (May 30, 1936 - November 26, 2021) was born in San Diego, grew up in San Bernardino, and signed with the St. Louis Cardinals in 1954 as a right-handed-hitting outfielder; the move to the mound, where he threw left-handed, came later. He reached St. Louis as a September call-up in 1960 and struck out Maury Wills and Charlie Neal in his first relief outing against the Dodgers. A brief Army stint and a short run at Atlanta preceded the Cardinals selling his contract to the Los Angeles Angels for $25,000 in October 1962. He later joined the Minnesota Twins organization and spent all of 1965 with the pennant winners, though he never got into that World Series. Back in the minors afterward, he signed a free-agent deal with St. Louis in 1968, threw the only complete game of his career against Atlanta, and worked a scoreless ninth inning in Game Six of the 1968 World Series, a 13-1 Detroit win. Six big league seasons with the Cardinals, Angels and Twins left him 4-10 with a 4.40 ERA in 93 games. He then scouted for eight organizations between 1973 and 2005.
Sources: Wikipedia · SABR BioProject · Baseball-Reference · Baseball Almanac
Graded population (PSA & SGC)
| Grader | Total | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 1-4 | Auth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA | 312 | 3 | 44 | 179 | 60 | 13 | 4 | 9 | 0 |
| SGC | 7 | 0 | 2 | 3 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Graded population — a scarcity guide, not a price. Data as of 2026-09-04. Half grades fold down for both graders (8.5→8); PSA qualified slabs (OC, ST, PD, MC and the like) are not counted.
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Related cards
Team card: #213 Los Angeles Angels
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- #61 Angel Backstops
- #71 Jack Spring
- #97 Jim Fregosi
- #110 Albie Pearson
- #127 Angels 1964 Rookie Stars
- #149 Paul Foytack
- #159 Charlie Dees
- #227 Barry Latman
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Frequently asked questions
What is the 1964 Topps #273 card?
It is card #273 of the 587-card 1964 Topps Baseball set, picturing Mel Nelson of the Los Angeles Angels.
How many cards are in the 1964 Topps Baseball set?
587 cards, tracked as 589 collectible states. Numbers run from 1 to 587 with no gaps, and no number carries two different cards; two cards - #4, the A.L. Pitching Leaders, and #517, the seventh-series checklist - carry a catalogued back variation that the master set counts separately.
Sources: Trading Card Database, PSA CardFacts, Cardboard Connection, The Topps Archives, Baseball Almanac, 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 2026-10-11.