1958 Topps Jim Brown #62 RC

A photograph from the grass at Hiram

Topps' 1958 football set has 132 cards in a single series, so it has no short prints. Each front puts the player inside an oval against a solid color, with his name, position and team along the bottom. The backs carry a biography, statistics and a cartoon or quiz. Second-year cards of Johnny Unitas and Bart Starr are in the set, but card #62 is the one collectors want.

The image is a colorized photograph of Brown in full stride, making a cut with the ball in his right arm. According to the description of a vintage news photo of the same image sold at auction, it was taken by Cleveland Browns staff photographer Henry Barr at the team's training facility on the campus of Hiram College in Ohio. Barr shot it lying on the ground, which gives the low angle that makes Brown look enormous. The photo's reverse carries date stamps of September 27 and 29, 1957.

The card calls him 'Jimmy Brown' in bold yellow letters. The red back shows his rookie line from 1957, 202 carries for 942 yards and nine touchdowns, and a 'Football Fun' quiz whose answer was hidden under a panel you scratched off with a coin.

From St. Simons Island to Cleveland

James Nathaniel Brown was born February 17, 1936, on St. Simons Island, Georgia, and was raised there by his grandmother. At eight he moved to Manhasset, on Long Island, where his mother worked as a domestic. At Manhasset he earned 13 letters in five sports, and his 38.1-point basketball average in 1953 remains a Nassau County record.

A Manhasset lawyer and former Syracuse lacrosse star, Kenneth Molloy, persuaded Syracuse to admit him and paid for his first year himself when a promised scholarship did not come through. Brown was the only Black player on the freshman football team and endured racist taunts. By 1956 he was a unanimous All-American. In his last regular-season game he scored six touchdowns and kicked seven extra points for 43 points against Colgate. He was also a first-team All-American in lacrosse and is in the Lacrosse Hall of Fame.

Cleveland took him sixth overall in the 1957 NFL draft; the NBA's Syracuse Nationals drafted him too. As a rookie he led the NFL with 942 rushing yards and nine rushing touchdowns, ran for a then-record 237 yards against the Los Angeles Rams, and was named Rookie of the Year and the AP's Most Valuable Player.

The season the card came out

In 1958, the year this card reached the stores, Brown broke the NFL's single-season rushing record with 1,527 yards in 12 games. That erased Steve Van Buren's 1949 mark of 1,146, and his 127.3 yards per game was also a record. He scored 18 touchdowns, 17 of them rushing, and led the league in scoring. The AP named him MVP again.

Cleveland went 9-3 and tied the New York Giants for first in the Eastern Conference, then lost the tiebreaker playoff to the Giants 10-0. The Giants went on to lose the 1958 NFL Championship Game to Baltimore on December 28, the first title game decided in sudden-death overtime and the one later called 'The Greatest Game Ever Played.'

Nine seasons, then gone

Brown led the NFL in rushing in eight of his nine seasons, made the Pro Bowl every year he played and never missed a game. His 1,863 yards in 1963 are still the Browns' team record, and the oldest rushing record of any NFL franchise. Cleveland won the 1964 championship. After a third MVP award in 1965, he was in England filming The Dirty Dozen when owner Art Modell threatened to fine him for every week of training camp he missed. In July 1966, at 30, Brown retired instead.

He left holding the career records for rushing yards (12,312), rushing touchdowns (106) and total touchdowns (126). He averaged 5.2 yards a carry and 104.3 rushing yards a game, and he remains the only player to average more than 100 rushing yards per game for a career. Walter Payton passed his rushing total on October 7, 1984. Brown entered the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1971, and in 1999 The Sporting News and the Associated Press named him the greatest professional football player ever.

Off the field he collected 53 acting credits and was described as Hollywood's first Black action hero. He founded the Black Economic Union in 1966, joined the 1967 Cleveland Summit in support of Muhammad Ali, and later started the Amer-I-Can Foundation, through which he helped broker the Watts gang truce. He died in Los Angeles on May 18, 2023, at 87.

Condition, census and sales

PSA says the card is often found with print defects, poor centering and chipping along the red edges of the back, and the whole 1958 set is known for centering trouble. No copy has ever graded PSA 10. PSA's census counts six at MINT 9, 200 at NM-MT 8 and more than 6,000 copies graded in all. A dealer recalls pulling one from an unopened cello pack years ago; it graded SGC 92, the equivalent of a PSA 8.5, and sold for about $3,000.

A PSA 9 sold at public auction for just under $30,000 in 2010. A PSA 9 brought $336,000 at auction in 2017, the highest price reported for the card. Interest rose again when Brown died in 2023. A PSA 7.5 had sold for $11,101 in March 2023. Two days after his death a PSA 6 brought $3,700, and an auction that closed four days after his death sold a PSA 4 for $5,355.

PSA 8, the grade tracked here, is the highest grade that comes up regularly. One sold for $20,132 at auction on December 1, 2025. PSA included the card on its 'Mount Rushmore of Football Cards.'

The numbers

1957 season (stats on the card back)

12 G, 202 att, 942 yds, 9 TD, 4.7 avg, 78.5 yds/game; 16 rec, 55 yds, 1 TD. NFL rushing leader; Rookie of the Year; AP MVP; first-team All-Pro.

1958 season (card year)

12 G, 257 att, 1,527 yds (then an NFL record), 17 TD, 5.9 avg, 127.3 yds/game; 16 rec, 138 yds, 1 TD; 18 total TD. AP MVP; first-team All-Pro; NFL scoring leader.

1963 season

14 G, 291 att, 1,863 yds, 12 TD, 6.4 avg, 133.1 yds/game

1965 season (final)

14 G, 289 att, 1,544 yds, 17 TD; 34 rec, 328 yds, 4 TD. AP MVP.

Career (1957-1965)

9 seasons, 118 G, 2,359 att, 12,312 yds, 106 TD, 5.2 avg, 104.3 yds/game; 262 rec, 2,499 yds, 20 TD; 126 total TD

Honors

3x AP MVP (1957, 1958, 1965); 9 Pro Bowls; 8x first-team All-Pro; 8 rushing titles; 1964 NFL champion; Hall of Fame 1971

Timeline

1. Feb 17, 1936

   Jim Brown is born on St. Simons Island, Georgia.

2. 1956

   Brown is a unanimous All-American at Syracuse and scores 43 points against Colgate.

3. 1957

   Cleveland drafts Brown sixth overall; he wins Rookie of the Year and the AP MVP award.

4. Sep 1957

   A news photo of Brown running, used for his rookie card, is stamped September 27 and 29, 1957.

5. 1958

   Topps issues its 132-card football set with Brown's rookie card at #62.

6. 1958

   Brown runs for an NFL-record 1,527 yards and wins a second MVP award.

7. 1963

   Brown rushes for 1,863 yards, still the Browns' team record.

8. 1964

   Cleveland wins the NFL championship.

9. Jul 1966

   Brown retires at 30 while filming The Dirty Dozen in England.

10. 1967

    Brown joins the Cleveland Summit in support of Muhammad Ali.

11. 1971

    Brown is inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

12. Oct 7, 1984

    Walter Payton passes Brown's career rushing record.

13. 2010

    A PSA 9 sells at public auction for just under $30,000.

14. 2017

    A PSA 9 sells at auction for $336,000, the card's highest reported price.

15. May 18, 2023

    Brown dies in Los Angeles at 87.

16. Dec 1, 2025

    A PSA 8 sells at auction for $20,132.

The world in 1958

• Jan 31, 1958

  Explorer 1, the first successful American satellite, reaches orbit.

• Mar 24, 1958

  Elvis Presley is inducted into the U.S. Army.

• Apr 15, 1958

  The San Francisco Giants beat the Los Angeles Dodgers in the first major league game played on the West Coast.

• Jul 29, 1958

  Congress creates NASA.

• Aug 3, 1958

  The submarine USS Nautilus becomes the first vessel to cross the North Pole underwater.

• Sep 18, 1958

  BankAmericard, the first widely offered credit card, launches in Fresno, California.

• Dec 28, 1958

  The Baltimore Colts beat the New York Giants in overtime in the NFL Championship Game, later called the greatest game ever played.

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, 1958 Topps Jim Brown #62 RC is number 53 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 (55 here) is editorial: how much an object defines its field, not price alone.

Did you know

• The rookie-card photo was shot by the Browns' team photographer lying on the ground at Hiram College in Ohio, according to the description of a vintage print of it sold at auction.
• The card calls him 'Jimmy Brown,' and its back has a quiz you had to scratch off with a coin.
• Brown was also drafted by the NBA's Syracuse Nationals in 1957.
• His dominance in a college lacrosse all-star game reportedly led to a rule change requiring ball carriers to keep their sticks moving.
• Brown is still the only player to average more than 100 rushing yards a game over a career.
• No 1958 Topps Jim Brown has ever graded PSA 10.
• Brown retired at 30 after winning the MVP award in his final season.