1966 Topps #212 Ed Kranepool
About Ed Kranepool
Third series - #212 is a straight base card, though the number also exists in the 1966 Topps Venezuelan parallel that covers the first 370 cards, printed on darker, thinner stock that almost never survives in high grade. The back's headline season is 1965, the busiest Kranepool ever played: 153 games, 133 hits, 10 home runs, 53 RBI. He was hitting .288 with seven homers in early July when the National League named him the Mets' lone All-Star, the only selection of his career, and then he sat through the game in Minnesota without an at-bat.
Ed Kranepool was born November 8, 1944, in the Bronx and starred at James Monroe High School before the expansion Mets signed him on June 27, 1962 for an $80,000 bonus. He debuted that September 22 at seventeen, the first teenager to play for the club, and was still on the roster in 1979 as the last man left from the original 1962 Mets. A left-handed first baseman who also worked the outfield, he spent all eighteen of his major league seasons in New York, the longest tenure in franchise history, and remains the Mets' all-time leader in games played with 1,853, alongside 1,418 hits, 118 home runs, 614 RBI and a .261 average. He was New York's lone All-Star representative in 1965 and homered in Game Three of the 1969 World Series, then reached the Series again with the 1973 National League champions. Late in his career 'Steady Eddie' became one of the game's most reliable pinch hitters, batting .396 off the bench from 1974 through 1978 and going 17-for-35 in 1974 for a .486 mark that still stands as the season record for pinch hitting. He later worked as a stockbroker and restaurateur, joined the New York Mets Hall of Fame in 1990, and died September 8, 2024, in Boca Raton, Florida.
Sources: Wikipedia · SABR BioProject · Baseball-Reference · Baseball Almanac · MLB.com · BaseballCardPedia
Graded population (PSA & SGC)
| Grader | Total | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 1-4 | Auth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA | 245 | 2 | 20 | 128 | 52 | 27 | 10 | 6 | 0 |
| SGC | 16 | 0 | 0 | 7 | 5 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 1 |
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. Where SGC registers no separate row for a variation state, its slabs of that card are listed under the base state.
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Related cards
Team card: #172 New York Mets
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- #51 Gordon Richardson
- #67 Mets 1966 Rookie Stars
- #87 Dan Napoleon
- #108 Bobby Klaus
- #124 Tug McGraw
- #154 Chuck Hiller
- #188 Al Luplow
- #191 Darrell Sutherland
- #241 Dennis Ribant
- #262 Jack Hamilton
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Frequently asked questions
What is the 1966 Topps #212 card?
It is card #212 of the 598-card 1966 Topps Baseball set, picturing Ed Kranepool of the New York Mets.
How many cards are in the 1966 Topps Baseball set?
598 cards, tracked as 613 collectible states. Numbers run from 1 to 598 with no gaps and no number used twice, and 14 cards carry catalogued print variations - five checklists, the trade and sold statement backs, the three-state #43 Don Landrum, three team-card dot pairs and the #161 Jerry Lumpe white streak - that the master set counts separately.
Sources: Trading Card Database, PSA CardFacts, Cardboard Connection, 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.