Apr 10, 2016

Cornerstone Collection: 1965 Topps Steve Carlton Enters the Magnetic Chamber

As you can probably tell, that is a reference to the card holder that the card came in when I purchased it.

As an extremely biased Phillies collector, there are five Hall of Famers that spent a good portion of their career with the Phillies during the Topps era: Ashburn, Roberts, Bunning, Schmidt, and Carlton. In a sense, getting the rookie cards of any of these power five, would be an automatic keeper.

The Carlton rookie is an interesting card in many respects.

  • This card was issued prior to his big league debut in 1965.  
  • He's paired up with a pitcher on the card, who had already made appearances for two years and never ultimately made an appearance with the Cardinals.  
  • The Cardinals red is significantly muted on the card; it's almost a shadowy red.  Was this done to match Ackley's airbrushed White Sox uniform?  It is the opposite in feeling of most 1965 Topps cards, which were bright and swooping
  • Carlton's next issued card wouldn't be until 1967; Topps seemed to forget about the pitching prospect for awhile.
  • It is arguably the best rookie card of the 1965 set (other contenders: Joe Morgan, Tony Perez).
This now enters the pantheon of my collection awaiting the rest of its contemporaries.