1957 Topps Basketball

This is Topps’ full first basketball set. It contains 80 cards and about every card in the set is considered a rookie card. These cards are in color and have a yellow and red banner. There are 30 single-prints, 49 double-prints, and 1 quadruple print. It’s important to note that these sets are known to have terrible centering and the cards sometimes tend to have print dots. This makes it a difficult task to find any of these cards in pristine condition

The most notable card in this set is certainly the Bill Russell card. This is the first card of him in a Celtics uniform and is fairly rare with a pop of about 700. Other notable rookies in this set include Bob Cousy and Bob Pettit

Notable Cards:

Bill Russell #77

The most notable card in this set is certainly the Bill Russell card. This is the first card of him in a Celtics uniform and is fairly rare with a pop of about 700; He is shown playing defense. Bill Russell has one card in the 1955 american sports club release that predates this 57 Topps card. It’s hand-cut and technically a pre-rookie card.

 

Russell won a jaw dropping 11 championships as a player which is almost as many seasons as he played in the NBA. Bill Russell averaged 15 points and 22 rebounds a game. Crazy because very few HOF players in the NBA averaged more rebounds than points per game in their career.

Bob Cousy #17

Bob Cousy played on the Boston Celtics alongside Bill Russell and won 6 NBA championships with him. He played on the Celtics for almost his entire career until he made a 1 year comeback at the ripe age of 41 and played with the Cincinnati Royals for 1 year.

Cousy averaged 18 points, 5 rebounds, and 7 assists per game. In addition to winning 6 rings, he also was the assist champ 8 times and won MVP in the 1956-57 season.

 

Similar to Russell, Bob Cousy also has a pre-rookie card in the 1951 Berk Ross Set. He has his holy cross jersey on and has a panel card that is connected to Richie Ashburn.

Bob Petit #24

Despite having played only 11 years, Pettit had an extremely impressive career which was played exclusively with the Hawks organization. He averaged 26 points and 16 rebounds for his entire career. To add to this already impressive resume, Pettit won 2 MVPs, ROTY, 2 Scoring titles, and was an NBA champ in 1958.

Card Specs:

These normally sized  cards are in color and have a yellow and red banner on the front. There are 30 single-prints, 49 double-prints, and 1 quadruple print in the set.

 

On the back there are vital stats, the card number, a small description of the player, and basketball stats. There is also a picture of a generic player show which illustrates the height of whatever player is on the front of the card.

Checklist:

1 Nat Clifton 

2 George Yardley 

3 Neil Johnston

4 Carl Braun

5 Bill Sharman

6 George King

7 Kenny Sears

8 Dick Ricketts

9 Jack Nichols

10 Paul Arizin

11 Chuck Noble

12 Slater Martin

13 Dolph Schayes

14 Dick Atha

15 Frank Ramsey

16 Dick McGuire

17 Bob Cousy 

18 Larry Foust

19 Tom Heinsohn 

20 Bill Thieben 

21 Don Meineke 

22 Tom Marshall 

23 Dick Garmaker

24 Bob Pettit

25 Jim Krebs 

26 Gene Shue 

27 Ed Macauley 

28 Vern Mikkelsen 

29 Willie Naulls

30 Walter Dukes 

31 Dave Piontek 

32 John Kerr 

33 Larry Costello 

34 Woody Sauldsberry

35 Ray Felix 

36 Ernie Beck 

37 Cliff Hagan 

38 Guy Sparrow 

39 Jim Loscutoff 

40 Arnie Risen 

41 Joe Graboski

42 Maurice Stokes

43 Rod Hundley

44 Tom Gola

45 Med Park

46 Mel Hutchins

47 Larry Friend

48 Lennie Rosenbluth

49 Walt Davis

50 Richie Regan

51 Frank Selvy

52 Art Spoelstra

53 Bob Hopkins

54 Earl Lloyd

55 Phil Jordon

56 Bob Houbregs

57 Lou Tsioropoulos

58 Ed Conlin

59 Al Bianchi

60 George Dempsey 

61 Chuck Share 

62 Harry Gallatin

63 Bob Harrison

64 Bob Burrow 

65 Win Wilfong 

66 Jack McMahon 

67 Jack George 

68 Charlie Tyra 

69 Ron Sobie 

70 Jack Coleman 

71 Jack Twyman 

72 Paul Seymour 

73 Jim Paxson 

74 Bob Leonard 

75 Andy Phillip 

76 Joe Holup 

77 Bill Russell 

78 Clyde Lovellette 

79 Ed Fleming 

80 Dick Schnittker

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