1952 Topps Jackie Robinson #312

Topps goes big

Topps had tested the baseball card market with small issues in 1951, but in 1952 it took on Bowman, the reigning card maker, head-on. Sy Berger was assigned to create a look that would grab children's attention. The result was a 407-card set, larger than anything Bowman had issued, on cards measuring 2 5/8 by 3 3/4 inches, nearly 50 percent larger than Bowman's. Topps printed 'GIANT SIZE' on the front of its packs.

Each card used a color-tinted photograph rather than a painting, giving it a photographic feel with a touch of art. A text box at the bottom held the player's printed name, a facsimile signature and a team logo. The cards reached stores in March 1952 and were issued in six series that ran from spring into the stretch run of the season.

Robinson was not in the 1951 Bowman set at all; he had appeared in Bowman's 1949 and 1950 sets. Card #312 was his first appearance in Topps' main set, and it came in the very last series, #311 through #407, which opens with four Hall of Famers in its first five cards: Mantle, Robinson, Roy Campanella and Leo Durocher, with Bobby Thomson at #313.

Jackie Robinson in 1952

Jack Roosevelt Robinson was born January 31, 1919, in Cairo, Georgia, and grew up in Pasadena, California. At UCLA he lettered in four sports. Drafted in 1942, he was commissioned a second lieutenant and, in August 1944, court-martialed for refusing to move to the back of a segregated Army bus; an all-white panel of officers acquitted him.

He hit .387 in 47 games for the Kansas City Monarchs in 1945. Branch Rickey signed him on October 23, 1945, and sent him to the Montreal Royals, where he hit .349 in 1946. On April 15, 1947, at 28, he debuted for the Brooklyn Dodgers and broke the major leagues' color line. He was Rookie of the Year in 1947 and, in 1949, became the first Black player to win the MVP award after hitting .342 with 124 RBI.

The year his Topps card appeared he hit .308 with 19 home runs, 24 stolen bases, 104 runs and 106 walks, and his .440 on-base percentage led the league. In the 1952 World Series against the Yankees he led off the second inning of Game 1 with a home run, but he hit .174 for the Series, and in the seventh inning of Game 7, with the bases loaded, his pop-up was caught off Billy Martin's shoe tops to preserve a Yankees lead. New York won 4-2 on October 7.

Robinson won a World Series in 1955. After the 1956 season the Dodgers traded him to the Giants, but he retired in January 1957 to become an executive at Chock full o'Nuts, and the trade was never completed. He entered the Hall of Fame in 1962 on 77.5 percent of the vote and died October 24, 1972. In 1997 Major League Baseball retired his number 42 for every team.

A series nobody wanted

By the time Topps printed its last series, the season was nearly over and children were headed back to school. Retailers ordered less, and many cases came back unsold. According to hobby lore, around 1960 Topps loaded pallets of the leftover high numbers onto a garbage barge and dumped them in the ocean to clear its Brooklyn warehouse. Berger, who had designed the cards, said he had tried to sell them at 10 for a penny at amusement parks and carnivals before he watched them go over the side.

That loss is part of why the high series is the hardest part of the set today. Robinson's card is slightly easier to find than most of its neighbors because it was double printed: Topps placed two copies on each sheet, as it did with Mantle and Thomson. A 2013 history noted that no collector had ever complained about too many Mantle, Robinson or Thomson cards.

The country around the card was changing fast. NBC launched the Today show in January, Emmett Ashford became the first Black umpire in organized baseball in February, Puerto Rico became a commonwealth in July, the first hydrogen bomb was detonated at Enewetak in November, and Dwight Eisenhower was elected president three days later.

The attic, the find and the market

In the spring of 1986 dealer Alan Rosen was called to the Boston area, where a case of uncirculated 1952 Topps had sat in an attic for decades. About 5,500 cards came out of it, nearly 75 percent from the high series, including about 75 or so Mantle and Robinson cards. The find put a batch of fresh, uncirculated high numbers back into the hobby.

In 2016 a PSA 9 sold at auction for $90,000; at the time PSA had graded 820 copies and given ten of them a 9, none higher. PSA's census now lists 11 PSA 9s and no 10, and its most recent recorded PSA 9 price is $960,000. A copy graded SGC 8 sold for $75,000 in September 2024, the highest SGC-graded example to reach public auction in more than two years. One of only four known signed copies brought $125,794 in September 2022, the highest price for any signed Robinson card at the time.

The grade this entry tracks, PSA 6, sold for $14,544 at online auction in June 2024 and $30,200 in March 2026. A market report recorded a PSA 6 sale of $54,000 in August 2026, and low grades have climbed too: a PSA 2.5 sold for a record $15,750 on June 23, 2026, up from $9,477.77 for the same grade in December 2025.

Type 1 or Type 2

Because the card was double printed, the image was physically cut and pasted into a second position on the sheet, and the two copies are not quite identical. On a Type 1, the stitches on the baseball around the card number on the back point left and are bold; on a Type 2 they point right and are thinner. On the back, the comma ending the first line of the biography sits under the 'T' in 'Right' on a Type 1 and under the 'H' on a Type 2. On the front, at the top left corner of the black border, the top line extends past the left line on a Type 1 but not on a Type 2.

Collectors generally describe the 1952 Topps high numbers as the set's toughest group, and centering is a problem across the set. PSA's census shows 130 PSA 6s, 73 PSA 7s, 44 PSA 8s and 11 PSA 9s, with no 10.

The front shows Robinson smiling in his Dodgers cap, bat on his right shoulder, against a deep red background. One grading service's write-up calls it a joyous image of a man who 'always found a way to smile despite enduring so much torment.'

The numbers

1952 season

149 G, 510 AB, 104 R, 157 H, 17 2B, 3 3B, 19 HR, 75 RBI, 24 SB, 106 BB, .308 BA, .440 OBP (led NL), .465 SLG

1952 World Series vs. New York

7 G, 23 AB, 4 R, 4 H, 1 HR, 2 RBI, 7 BB, 2 SB, .174 BA. Yankees won 4-3.

1949 season

156 G, 203 H, 16 HR, 124 RBI, 37 SB, .342 BA. NL MVP.

1947 season

151 G, 175 H, 12 HR, 48 RBI, 29 SB, .297 BA. Rookie of the Year.

Dodgers career (1947-1956)

1,518 H, 137 HR, 734 RBI, .311 BA

Career, 11 seasons including 1945 in the Negro leagues

11 seasons, 1,419 G, 1,568 H, 141 HR, 765 RBI, 203 SB, .313 BA, .410 OBP

Hall of Fame

Elected 1962, 124 of 160 ballots (77.5 percent)

Timeline

1. Jan 31, 1919

   Jackie Robinson is born in Cairo, Georgia.

2. Aug 1944

   Robinson is court-martialed for refusing to move to the back of an Army bus, and acquitted.

3. Oct 23, 1945

   Branch Rickey signs Robinson and assigns him to the Montreal Royals.

4. Apr 15, 1947

   Robinson debuts for the Brooklyn Dodgers.

5. 1949

   Robinson wins the National League MVP.

6. Mar 1952

   Topps' first full baseball set reaches stores; Robinson's #312 comes later, in the final series.

7. Oct 7, 1952

   The Yankees beat the Dodgers 4-2 in Game 7 of the World Series.

8. 1955

   Robinson's Dodgers win the World Series.

9. Jan 1957

   Robinson retires rather than report to the Giants.

10. 1960

    By hobby lore, Topps dumps unsold 1952 high-number cases into the ocean.

11. 1962

    Robinson is elected to the Hall of Fame.

12. Oct 24, 1972

    Robinson dies.

13. 1986

    A case of 1952 Topps found in a Boston-area attic yields about 75 or so Mantle and Robinson cards.

14. 1997

    Major League Baseball retires number 42 for every team.

15. 2016

    A PSA 9, then one of ten at that grade, sells at auction for $90,000.

16. Sep 2022

    One of four known signed copies sells for $125,794, a record for any signed Robinson card.

17. Sep 2024

    An SGC 8 copy sells at auction for $75,000.

18. Jun 23, 2026

    A PSA 2.5 sells for a record $15,750 for the grade.

The world in 1952

• Jan 14, 1952

  The Today show premieres on NBC.

• Feb 20, 1952

  Emmett Ashford becomes the first Black umpire in organized baseball.

• Apr 15, 1952

  The B-52 Stratofortress makes its first flight.

• Jul 25, 1952

  Puerto Rico becomes a self-governing commonwealth of the United States.

• Oct 7, 1952

  The Yankees win their fourth straight World Series, over Robinson's Dodgers.

• Nov 1, 1952

  The first hydrogen bomb is detonated at Enewetak Atoll.

• Nov 4, 1952

  Dwight D. Eisenhower is elected president.

Daily price data

FLOAT reprices this card every day from completed sales. Last updated November 12, 2026.

No completed sale at PSA 6 is on record yet. The same card at other grades:

Every grade and recorded sale for this card

Price record

A realized auction price is what a buyer actually paid on the date shown, including the buyer's premium where the sale reported it. It is the strongest kind of reference price, and it is a record of one sale of one object on one day, not a promise of what the next example will bring.

By reference price, 1952 Topps Jackie Robinson #312 is number 49 of 100 in the trading cards entries of the FLOAT 100. 97 of those 100 rest on a realized sale; the rest carry an asking price or a guide value, and each page says which. Rank within the FLOAT 100 itself (18 here) is editorial: how much an object defines its field, not price alone.

Did you know

• Robinson's card sits at #312, directly after the 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle, and both were double printed on the same final series.
• Topps' designer, Sy Berger, said he tried to sell leftover 1952 high numbers at 10 for a penny before the company reportedly dumped them at sea around 1960.
• The two printed versions can be told apart by which way the baseball stitches point on the back.
• Robinson is missing from the 1951 Bowman set entirely.
• His .440 on-base percentage led the National League the year the card came out.
• A 1986 attic find of about 5,500 1952 Topps cards included roughly 75 Mantles and Robinsons.
• In 1953 Topps made Robinson card #1.