1965 Topps #507 Sammy Ellis
About Sammy Ellis
This is Ellis's first solo Topps card, and it leads off the seventh and final series, a high number and the only one of his Topps cards to land in a high-number run. The back covers the 1964 season that earned him the promotion: 10-3 with a 2.57 ERA, 125 strikeouts and 14 saves over 52 appearances and 122.1 innings for Cincinnati, with only five starts among them. That bullpen work put him in the Reds rotation the following spring.
Samuel Joseph Ellis was born February 11, 1941, in Youngstown, Ohio, and signed with the Cincinnati Reds as an amateur free agent in 1961 for a $50,000 bonus after a single year of college baseball at Mississippi State. He went 10-3 with a 1.89 ERA for Class A Columbia that first summer, reached Cincinnati on April 14, 1962, and no-hit the Tacoma Giants for Triple-A San Diego on August 14, 1962. His peak came in 1965: 22-10 with a 3.79 ERA, 183 strikeouts, 15 complete games and his only All-Star selection. A sore arm arrived the next season and he never had another winning year, moving on to the California Angels and then the Chicago White Sox. Ellis finished 63-58 with a 4.15 ERA and 677 strikeouts in seven major league seasons, then spent twelve seasons as a big league pitching coach, most famously turning Dave Righetti into a reliever for the 1984 Yankees. He died of cancer on May 13, 2016, in Temple Terrace, Florida, at 75.
Sources: Wikipedia · Baseball-Reference · Baseball Almanac · BaseballCardPedia
Graded population (PSA & SGC)
| Grader | Total | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 1-4 | Auth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA | 341 | 3 | 60 | 177 | 56 | 27 | 12 | 6 | 0 |
| SGC | 19 | 0 | 6 | 6 | 2 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 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. The two checklist variations, #79 and #508, are listed under the wording PSA uses for each state.
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Related cards
Team card: #316 Cincinnati Reds
More Cincinnati Reds cards:
- #18 Bill McCool
- #47 Tommy Harper
- #60 Jim O'Toole
- #75 Deron Johnson
- #102 Steve Boros
- #120 Frank Robinson
- #141 Charlie James
- #158 Dick Sisler
- #174 Joe Jay
- #192 Jim Coker
- #207 Pete Rose
- #221 John Tsitouris
- #243 Reds 1965 Rookie Stars
- #263 Marty Keough
Frequently asked questions
What is the 1965 Topps #507 card?
It is card #507 of the 598-card 1965 Topps Baseball set, picturing Sammy Ellis of the Cincinnati Reds.
Is 1965 Topps #507 a scarce card?
It is a high number card from the seventh and last series, #507-598. Unlike most 1960s Topps sets the 1965 highs are not scarce as a run - the premium sits on the short-printed cards inside #523-598.
How many cards are in the 1965 Topps Baseball set?
598 cards, tracked as 600 collectible states. Numbers run from 1 to 598 with no gaps and no printed-number collisions, and two checklist cards - #79 and #508 - carry catalogued print variations that the master set counts separately.
Sources: Trading Card Database, PSA CardFacts, Cardboard Connection, BaseballCardPedia, 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.