1966 Topps #478 Tony Gonzalez


About Tony Gonzalez
Card #478 comes out of the 1966 set's sixth series and reports a .295 average with 13 home runs, 41 RBI and 19 doubles in 108 games. The 13 homers stand as his second-best single-season total. The games figure stayed low because Gene Mauch kept platooning him; Gonzalez said that sitting four or five days cost him his timing at the plate and a step in the outfield. His eyes, he added, had quit bothering him.
Andres Antonio "Tony" Gonzalez was a Cuban-born outfielder who spent nine of his twelve big-league seasons with the Philadelphia Phillies and was their primary center fielder for five of them. He built his strength hoisting 250-pound sacks of sugar during Cuba's cane season, signed with Cincinnati for ten dollars and a bus ticket to Havana, and reached the majors in 1960. The 5-foot-9 left-handed hitter was called "Little Dynamite" for the way the ball came off his bat. In 1962 he became the first everyday big-league center fielder to play an errorless season, and in 1967 he batted .339, second in the National League to Roberto Clemente, yet he was never an All-Star. Repeated beanings troubled his eyes and brought him the first big-league batting helmet with a pre-molded ear flap, in 1964. Dealt to Atlanta in June 1969, he hit .357 in that year's Championship Series with a home run off Tom Seaver. His major-league line closed at 1,485 hits and a .286 average; he played on in Mexico and Japan in 1972, then coached in the Phillies' and Angels' farm systems. The Cuban Baseball Hall of Fame, run in exile in Miami, inducted him in 1985. He died July 2, 2021, at 84.
Sources: Wikipedia · SABR BioProject · Baseball-Reference · Baseball Almanac
Graded population (PSA & SGC)
| Grader | Total | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 1-4 | Auth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA | 181 | 1 | 22 | 67 | 51 | 13 | 15 | 12 | 0 |
| SGC | 5 | 0 | 1 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 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: #463 Philadelphia Phillies
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Frequently asked questions
What is the 1966 Topps #478 card?
It is card #478 of the 598-card 1966 Topps Baseball set, picturing Tony Gonzalez of the Philadelphia Phillies.
Why is #478 harder to find?
It is from the sixth print series, #447-522 - noticeably tougher than the first five. Nothing in #447-522 is short-printed.
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.