1966 Topps #286 Gary Geiger
About Gary Geiger
Card #286 is a series-4 issue and Geiger's first Topps card with Atlanta, reached the hard way: Boston sold him to Toronto in October 1965 and the Braves took him in the Rule 5 draft weeks later. The 1965 line on the back is 24 games long - he broke three bones in his left hand in June diving for a Tom McCraw double, which ended the season, and his May 25 home run off Minnesota was the only one he hit all year.
Gary Merle Geiger grew up in the farm country around Sand Ridge, Illinois, and signed with the St. Louis Cardinals as a pitcher two days after his 1954 high school graduation, for the largest bonus a club could pay a player it did not put straight on its major-league roster. The Cardinals turned him into a left-handed-hitting outfielder, then left him unprotected, and Cleveland took him in the December 1957 Rule 5 draft; he debuted on Opening Day 1958. A year later he went to Boston in the trade that sent Jimmy Piersall to Cleveland, and he became the Red Sox center fielder, leading the club with 18 home runs in 1961. Injury kept interrupting him: a pitch that collapsed a lung in 1960, a wall collision in 1962, ulcer surgery that briefly ended his career in 1964, and a broken hand in 1965. He spent two part-time seasons with Atlanta and closed out in Houston, finishing twelve seasons at .246 with 77 home runs and 283 RBIs. He later managed in the Cardinals farm system and died in 1996 at 59.
Sources: Wikipedia · SABR BioProject · Baseball-Reference · SABR Games Project · Baseball Almanac
Graded population (PSA & SGC)
| Grader | Total | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 1-4 | Auth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA | 161 | 0 | 17 | 95 | 28 | 15 | 2 | 4 | 0 |
| SGC | 5 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 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. 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: #326 Atlanta Braves
More Atlanta Braves cards:
- #10 Tony Cloninger
- #28 Phil Niekro
- #49 Woody Woodward
- #84 Braves 1966 Rookie Stars
- #96 Felipe Alou
- #130 Joe Torre
- #153 Rico Carty
- #168 Dan Osinski
- #184 Denis Menke
- #200 Ed Mathews
- #215 National League 1965 Batting Leaders
- #223 National League 1965 Pitching Leaders
- #237 Billy O'Dell
- #252 Denver Lemaster
Frequently asked questions
What is the 1966 Topps #286 card?
It is card #286 of the 598-card 1966 Topps Baseball set, picturing Gary Geiger of the Atlanta Braves.
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.