1955 Topps Roberto Clemente #164 RC

Topps' smallest set and its first horizontal one

In 1955 Topps and Bowman were still splitting the players between them, and Topps' set came out small: 206 cards numbered to 210. Four numbers were left out, probably because of last-minute contract problems. Fifty years later Topps said the missing cards would have been Stan Musial, Whitey Ford, Bob Feller and Herb Score. To fill the gaps, Topps double-printed four other cards. The rival 1955 Bowman set ran to 320 cards.

The set came out in two series: a low series, cards 1-160, and a harder-to-find high series, cards 161-210, which includes Clemente's #164. Collectors bought one-card penny packs, six-card nickel packs and 15-card cello packs. The cards measure 2 5/8 by 3 3/4 inches and were the first horizontal cards Topps ever issued.

Each front has a white border around a large color head shot, a smaller full-body shot with a black facsimile autograph, a team logo, and a background that fades from light to dark in one of seven color schemes. The back carries a biography, statistics and a cartoon trivia question. The set has 22 rookies, and the three most important are #123 Sandy Koufax, #124 Harmon Killebrew and #164 Clemente.

From Carolina to Pittsburgh

Roberto Clemente Walker was born on August 18, 1934, in Carolina, Puerto Rico, the youngest of Luisa Walker de Clemente's seven children. His father, Melchor Clemente, was a foreman. At 18, in 1952, he signed with the Santurce Cangrejeros (Crabbers) of the Puerto Rican League.

On February 19, 1954, the Brooklyn Dodgers signed him for a $10,000 bonus and a $5,000 salary. Under baseball's bonus rule, a team that paid a bonus that size had to keep the player on its major league roster for two full seasons or risk losing him. Brooklyn sent him to its Triple-A club in Montreal, where he hit .257 in 87 games. Some have argued the Dodgers limited his playing time to hide him from other clubs; Montreal manager Max Macon denied receiving such orders, and other research suggests Clemente simply needed time to develop.

Either way, the Dodgers lost him. On November 22, 1954, the Pittsburgh Pirates took Clemente with their first pick in the Rule 5 draft. He never played another minor league game.

Forbes Field, 1955

Clemente debuted on April 17, 1955, against Brooklyn at Forbes Field, and reached base on an infield hit in his first at-bat. He started in No. 13 before switching to No. 21, reportedly chosen because 'Roberto Clemente Walker' has 21 letters. He played the season with a lower back injury from the previous winter, when a speeding drunk driver hit his car in Puerto Rico, and hit .255 in 124 games.

The team that let him go won its only championship in Brooklyn that fall, beating the Yankees in the World Series on October 4. It was also the year Jonas Salk's polio vaccine was approved, Disneyland opened, Emmett Till was murdered in Mississippi and Rosa Parks was arrested in Montgomery, Alabama, setting off the bus boycott.

Clemente also faced discrimination from the start. Some sportswriters misquoted him to make him look foolish, and, to make him seem more American, began calling him 'Bob' or 'Bobby.' One account says his baseball cards used that name as late as 1969, which he considered disrespectful to his Puerto Rican roots.

What to look for

PSA calls the Clemente rookie the card that 'garners the lion's share of collector attention' among all his cards. Its advantage over the Koufax rookie in the same set is condition scarcity: the Clemente is noticeably harder to find in PSA 8 or better.

In 2006 the Clemente was the second most-graded card in the 1955 set, with 1,750 submissions, behind only Koufax. By September 2022 PSA had graded 4,735 copies, and just 11 had reached PSA 9. The only PSA 10 comes from the collection of former major leaguer Dmitri Young.

As of 2026, PSA reports one PSA 10, 11 PSA 9s, 123 PSA 8s and 349 PSA 7s. A PSA 8, the grade on this FLOAT 100 entry, is near mint-mint; 20 copies sat above it, counting half grades.

From $8,000 to seven figures

As recently as 2013 a PSA 8 Clemente sold for four or five figures. In April 2013 one sold at auction for $8,036, then a record for the grade. Four months later, in late August 2013, another PSA 8 brought $13,236 at auction. In May 2024 a PSA 8 sold at auction for $52,800.

The PSA 9s went much higher. On June 3, 2021, a PSA 9 sold at auction for $1,107,000, a record for any Clemente card. On September 22, 2022, another PSA 9 brought $1,050,000 on 60 bids; at that point only two PSA 9s had come to market since 2020, and both had passed $1 million. A PSA 9 brought $732,000 after 15 bids in a sale reported in June 2025.

On August 7, 2025, an auction house announced the private sale of a PSA 9 for $1,150,000, the highest price yet paid for a Clemente rookie in that grade. The auction house's specialists called it the second-finest known copy, behind only the lone PSA 10.

3,000 hits and a flight to Nicaragua

Clemente hit .311 in his second season, and his breakout came in 1960, when he made his first All-Star team and hit safely in all seven games of the World Series, which Pittsburgh won on Bill Mazeroski's Game 7 walk-off home run. He won four batting titles, the 1966 National League MVP award and 12 straight Gold Gloves. In the 1971 World Series he had 12 hits, batted .414 and was named the Series MVP.

On September 30, 1972, he doubled off Jon Matlack for his 3,000th hit. Three months later, on December 31, 1972, the overloaded DC-7 carrying him and relief supplies to earthquake-stricken Nicaragua crashed into the Atlantic just after takeoff from Isla Verde, Puerto Rico. His body was never recovered.

On March 20, 1973, the baseball writers held a special election that waived the usual waiting period, and Clemente was elected to the Hall of Fame with 393 of 424 votes. He was the first Latin American player inducted. The Pirates retired No. 21 on April 6, 1973, and Major League Baseball renamed its Commissioner's Award, given for playing excellence and community work, the Roberto Clemente Award.

The numbers

1955 season (Pirates)

124 G, 474 AB, 48 R, 121 H, 23 2B, 11 3B, 5 HR, 47 RBI, 2 SB, 18 BB, 60 SO, .255 BA, .284 OBP, .382 SLG

1954 minors (Montreal)

87 G, .257 BA, 2 HR

1956 season

147 G, 169 H, 7 HR, 60 RBI, .311 BA

Batting titles

4 (.351 in 1961, .339 in 1964, .329 in 1965, .357 in 1967)

Awards

1966 NL MVP; 1971 World Series MVP (.414); 12 straight Gold Gloves (1961-1972)

Career (1955-1972)

2,433 G, 3,000 H, 240 HR, 1,305 RBI, .317 BA, .359 OBP, .475 SLG

Hall of Fame

1973, special election; 393 of 424 votes (92.7%)

Timeline

1. Aug 18, 1934

   Roberto Clemente is born in Carolina, Puerto Rico.

2. 1952

   Clemente signs with the Santurce Cangrejeros at 18.

3. Feb 19, 1954

   The Brooklyn Dodgers sign him for a $10,000 bonus and $5,000 salary.

4. 1954

   Clemente hits .257 in 87 games for the Montreal Royals.

5. Nov 22, 1954

   The Pirates take Clemente with their first pick in the Rule 5 draft.

6. Apr 17, 1955

   Clemente debuts against Brooklyn at Forbes Field.

7. 1955

   Topps issues his rookie card, #164, in the high series of its first horizontal set.

8. 1960

   Clemente hits safely in all seven World Series games as Pittsburgh wins.

9. 1966

   Clemente wins the National League MVP award.

10. 1971

    Clemente bats .414 and is named World Series MVP.

11. Sep 30, 1972

    Clemente doubles off Jon Matlack for his 3,000th hit.

12. Dec 31, 1972

    Clemente dies when his relief flight to Nicaragua crashes off Puerto Rico.

13. Mar 20, 1973

    A special election puts Clemente in the Hall of Fame.

14. Apr 6, 1973

    The Pirates retire No. 21.

15. Apr 2013

    A PSA 8 sells at auction for $8,036, a record for the grade at the time.

16. Jun 3, 2021

    A PSA 9 sells at auction for $1,107,000, a record for any Clemente card.

17. Sep 22, 2022

    Another PSA 9 sells for $1,050,000.

18. Aug 2025

    A private sale of a PSA 9 for $1,150,000, a record for the grade, is announced.

The world in 1955

• Apr 12, 1955

  Jonas Salk's polio vaccine is approved after successful trials.

• Apr 15, 1955

  Ray Kroc opens his first McDonald's franchise in Des Plaines, Illinois.

• Jul 17, 1955

  Disneyland opens in Anaheim, California.

• Aug 28, 1955

  Emmett Till is murdered in Money, Mississippi.

• Sep 30, 1955

  Actor James Dean dies in a car crash near Cholame, California.

• Oct 4, 1955

  The Brooklyn Dodgers win their first World Series, over the Yankees.

• Dec 1, 1955

  Rosa Parks is arrested in Montgomery, Alabama.

• Dec 5, 1955

  The AFL and CIO merge, and the Montgomery bus boycott organization forms.

Daily price data

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

No completed sale at PSA 8 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, 1955 Topps Roberto Clemente #164 RC is number 32 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 (9 here) is editorial: how much an object defines its field, not price alone.

Did you know

• Clemente's No. 21 was reportedly chosen because 'Roberto Clemente Walker' has 21 letters.
• The Pirates got Clemente in the Rule 5 draft after Brooklyn signed him but did not keep him on its major league roster.
• The 1955 Topps set is numbered to 210 but has only 206 cards; Topps said in 2005 the missing four would have been Musial, Ford, Feller and Score.
• Clemente joined the Marine Corps Reserve in September 1958, and the training reportedly cured his back trouble.
• The Hall of Fame waived its waiting period for Clemente, the first Latin American player it inducted.