1966 Topps #431 Walt Bond
About Walt Bond
Topps put Bond in an Astros cap on this fifth-series card, an ordinary number. Houston had already moved on: the Astros traded him to Minnesota for Ken Retzer on April 10, 1966, days before the opener, so the uniform here belongs to a player who never appeared in a game for the 1966 club. The Twins sent him to Triple-A Denver, where he hit .316 with 18 home runs in 122 games for the Bears and earned an invitation to Minnesota's major league camp the next spring.
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 · Baseball Almanac · The Hardball Times · The Baseball Cube
Graded population (PSA & SGC)
| Grader | Total | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 1-4 | Auth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA | 158 | 1 | 12 | 85 | 44 | 10 | 2 | 4 | 0 |
| SGC | 5 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 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
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- #45 Jim Gentile
- #64 Bob Bruce
- #86 John Bateman
- #106 Rusty Staub
- #122 Joe Gaines
- #147 Lum Harris
- #162 Lee Maye
- #174 Ron Taylor
- #195 Joe Morgan
- #228 Larry Dierker
- #244 Astros 1966 Rookie Stars
- #258 Dave Giusti
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Frequently asked questions
What is the 1966 Topps #431 card?
It is card #431 of the 598-card 1966 Topps Baseball set, picturing Walt Bond of the Houston Astros.
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.