1957 Topps Mickey Mantle #95

The set that set the standard

Topps had been in a bruising fight with Bowman for players and customers since the early 1950s. In 1956 Topps bought Bowman out, which left it as the predominant maker of baseball cards for the next 25 years. Its 1957 set, the first made without a major rival, changed the baseball card in three ways that lasted.

First, Topps used actual color photographs instead of the hand-tinted black-and-white photos of earlier years. Second, it shrank the card to 2 1/2 by 3 1/2 inches, the size that is still standard today; a grading service's later review of the set wrote that collectors immediately accepted the new format as "just right." Third, it printed each player's full year-by-year career statistics on the back for the first time, along with a short biography and a trivia cartoon.

The set numbered 407 cards, like the 1952 Topps set, and was issued in five series. Eight unnumbered checklists, four contest cards and a Lucky Penny redemption insert make a master set far harder to finish. The fourth series (#265-352) is the hardest to find, and the first series held a record 19 Hall of Famers among just 88 cards.

The front design is spare: a photo with a simple two-line name and team. That plainness is why many collectors rank the 1957 set among the most attractive Topps ever made.

The Mick at his peak

Mickey Charles Mantle was born October 20, 1931, in Spavinaw, Oklahoma, and grew up in Commerce, where his father, Mutt, worked in the lead and zinc mines. Mutt named him after catcher Mickey Cochrane and trained him from childhood as a switch-hitter: Mickey batted left-handed against his right-handed father and right-handed against his left-handed grandfather.

He reached the Yankees in 1951 and took over center field when Joe DiMaggio retired. In 1956 he had what he called his "favorite summer": he led the majors with a .353 average, 52 home runs and 130 RBI to win the Triple Crown, the only switch-hitter ever to do it, and won his first MVP.

In 1957, the year of this card, he won the MVP again. He hit a career-high .365, second in the American League to Ted Williams, led the league with 121 runs and 146 walks, and reached base more times than he made outs. On July 23 he hit for the cycle.

That October the Yankees met the Milwaukee Braves in the World Series, the first Series to match both leagues' MVPs, Mantle and Hank Aaron. During the Series Mantle tore a tendon in his left shoulder in a collision with second baseman Red Schoendienst. The Braves won in seven games, and the injury troubled his left-handed swing for the rest of his career.

Mantle played all 18 of his seasons with the Yankees, retired after 1968 with 536 home runs, and was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1974, his first year of eligibility. He died August 13, 1995, in Dallas, at 63.

What is on the card, and what to look for

Card #95 shows Mantle in a color photograph, swinging left-handed, with only his name and team below. Look to the right of Mantle and there is an obvious blotch where someone, possibly an on-field photographer, appears to have been airbrushed out of the background. It is a quirk of the card, not a variation; every copy has it.

Collectors have always called it hard to find in top condition. A grading service's 1996 review of the set described #95 as "super popular" and tough to find well centered, with vivid background color, or without printing flaws. The set as a whole is plagued by below-average centering and "print snow," small white specks where color failed to print.

It is also the most graded card in the set. A 2008 count found 2,712 copies of #95 graded, with 229 at PSA 8, 20 at PSA 9 and one PSA 10. The current census as fetched shows 280 at PSA 8, 22 at PSA 9 and still just one PSA 10, so a PSA 8 sits near the top of a large population, with only 39 copies graded higher.

Mantle appears twice in the set. The last card, #407, "Yankees' Power Hitters," pairs him with Yogi Berra and was one of Topps' first combination cards featuring stars.

How the card has traded

The only PSA 10 sold for $36,225 in 2006. In the grade of this entry, PSA 8, copies have sold in the low five figures. One brought $12,600 at an auction that closed in February 2025, among four Mantle cards in that sale's top ten, and another sold for $12,988 in an online auction on September 28, 2025.

Half a grade higher, prices jump. A single PSA 8.5 copy sold for $39,900 in May 2021, $35,100 that November and $66,000 in June 2022. Another PSA 8.5 sold for $46,800 at auction in March 2024, and a PSA 8.5 brought $40,800 in April 2025. The grading service's census counts 10 copies at 8.5.

Lower grades put the card within reach of most collectors: a PSA 7 brought $4,406 in an online auction on January 2, 2026, and a PSA 5 sold for $1,802 in August 2026.

1957: the last New York summer

The 1957 season was the last for the Brooklyn Dodgers and New York Giants in New York. On May 3, Dodgers owner Walter O'Malley agreed to move the team to Los Angeles, and both clubs left for California after the season. The Braves' title that October was the only World Series won by a Milwaukee team.

Off the field, Elvis Presley bought Graceland in March, Jack Kerouac's On the Road was published in September, and President Eisenhower sent federal troops to Little Rock to escort the Little Rock Nine into Central High School. West Side Story opened on Broadway two days later, and Leave It to Beaver premiered in October.

The numbers

1957 season (card year)

144 G, 623 PA, 474 AB, 121 R, 173 H, 28 2B, 6 3B, 34 HR, 94 RBI, 16 SB, 146 BB, 75 SO, .365 BA, .512 OBP, .665 SLG. AL MVP; led the league in runs and walks.

1957 World Series vs. Milwaukee

6 G, 19 AB, 3 R, 5 H, 1 HR, 2 RBI, .263. Braves won 4-3.

1956 season

150 G, 533 AB, 132 R, 188 H, 52 HR, 130 RBI, .353 BA, .705 SLG. Triple Crown and AL MVP.

Career (1951-1968)

18 seasons, 2,401 G, 8,102 AB, 1,676 R, 2,415 H, 344 2B, 72 3B, 536 HR, 1,509 RBI, 153 SB, 1,733 BB, .298 BA, .421 OBP, .557 SLG

Honors

3 AL MVPs (1956, 1957, 1962); 20-time All-Star; 7 World Series titles; Hall of Fame 1974

Timeline

1. Oct 20, 1931

   Mickey Mantle is born in Spavinaw, Oklahoma.

2. 1951

   Mantle debuts with the New York Yankees.

3. 1956

   Mantle wins the Triple Crown (.353, 52 HR, 130 RBI) and his first MVP.

4. 1956

   Topps buys out Bowman, its main baseball card rival.

5. 1957

   Topps issues its 407-card set, the first in the 2 1/2 by 3 1/2 inch size and the first with color photographs; Mantle is #95.

6. Jul 23, 1957

   Mantle hits for the cycle.

7. Oct 10, 1957

   The Milwaukee Braves win Game 7 of the World Series at Yankee Stadium; Mantle had torn a shoulder tendon during the Series.

8. 1957

   Mantle wins his second straight American League MVP after hitting a career-high .365.

9. 1974

   Mantle is elected to the Hall of Fame in his first year of eligibility.

10. Aug 13, 1995

    Mantle dies in Dallas at 63.

11. 2008

    A census count finds 2,712 copies of #95 graded, the most of any card in the set.

12. Jun 2022

    A PSA 8.5 copy sells for $66,000.

13. Feb 2025

    A PSA 8 copy sells at auction for $12,600.

14. Sep 28, 2025

    A PSA 8 copy sells in an online auction for $12,988.

The world in 1957

• Jan 20, 1957

  Dwight D. Eisenhower and Richard Nixon are inaugurated for a second term.

• Mar 26, 1957

  Elvis Presley buys Graceland for $100,000.

• May 3, 1957

  Dodgers owner Walter O'Malley agrees to move the team from Brooklyn to Los Angeles.

• Sep 5, 1957

  Jack Kerouac's On the Road is published.

• Sep 24, 1957

  Eisenhower sends federal troops to Little Rock for the Little Rock Nine.

• Sep 26, 1957

  West Side Story opens on Broadway.

• Oct 4, 1957

  Leave It to Beaver premieres on CBS.

• Dec 20, 1957

  The Boeing 707 airliner flies for the first time.

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, 1957 Topps Mickey Mantle #95 is number 62 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 (15 here) is editorial: how much an object defines its field, not price alone.

Did you know

• The 1957 Topps set introduced the 2 1/2 by 3 1/2 inch card that is still the standard size.
• There is an airbrushed blotch to the right of Mantle on his 1957 card, where someone appears to have been removed from the background.
• Mantle was named after Hall of Fame catcher Mickey Cochrane.
• In 1957 Mantle reached base more times than he made outs, 319 to 312.
• The 1957 World Series was the first to match the MVPs of both leagues, Mantle and Hank Aaron.
• Hank Aaron's card in the same set is printed backward, showing him batting left-handed.
• One PSA 8.5 copy of this card sold three times in about 13 months, for $39,900, $35,100 and $66,000.