1965 Topps #109 Walt Bond
About Walt Bond
The 1965 design hangs each team name on a pennant, and Bond's reads simply HOUSTON rather than ASTROS, artwork left over from the club's change of name from the Colt .45's. His first season in the Astrodome went the way that ballpark suggested. Bond was hitting .270 with four home runs and 32 RBIs at the end of June when the Astros picked up veteran first baseman Jim Gentile and cut him back to a utility role. He finished .263 with seven home runs and 47 RBIs in 117 games, the average a touch better than 1964 and the power gone.
Walter Franklin Bond stood 6 feet 7 inches, batted left and threw right, and came out of Denmark, Tennessee, by way of Lane College and a job with the Kansas City Monarchs in the last days of the Negro leagues. Cleveland signed him before the 1957 season. He hit .299 across a long minor league career that included a .320 year at Triple-A Salt Lake City in 1962, the same season he was diagnosed with leukemia while serving as a private first class in the U.S. Army. Houston general manager Paul Richards knew about the illness, had the club doctor confirm it was in remission, and finally gave Bond the everyday job Cleveland never did: 20 home runs and 85 RBIs in 1964, the best of his six big league seasons. He played 365 major league games in all, for the Indians, the Colt .45's and Astros, and the Twins, batting .256 with 41 home runs and 179 RBIs. He died of leukemia in Houston on September 14, 1967, a month short of 30, and is buried at Houston National Cemetery.
Sources: Wikipedia · Baseball-Reference · The Hardball Times · The Baseball Cube · BaseballCardPedia
Graded population (PSA & SGC)
| Grader | Total | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 1-4 | Auth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA | 182 | 0 | 16 | 87 | 45 | 26 | 6 | 2 | 0 |
| SGC | 5 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 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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Frequently asked questions
What is the 1965 Topps #109 card?
It is card #109 of the 598-card 1965 Topps Baseball set, picturing Walt Bond of the Houston Astros.
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.