1952 Topps Andy Pafko

Card #1 of the 1952 Topps series, the 1952 Topps Andy Pafko, is one of the most sought after in this classic series.  Its rarity has much to do with how baseball cards were handled by the kids of the 1950s that first unwrapped the cards and chewed the bubble gum inside.

Andy Pafko was a solid outfielder for the Cubs, Dodgers and Milwaukee Braves.  He was a flexible player, playing third base as well as outfield for Cubs manager Charlie Grimm.  (For this flexibility, Grimm gave him the nickname, “Handy Andy.”)  He hit 110 RBI in the Cubs’ 1945 pennant-winning year and slugged 36 home runs in 1950; lifetime he hit a solid .285 and was a five-time NL All Star.  The 1952 Topps Andy Pafko pictures him in a Brooklyn Dodgers uniform.  Pafko came to Brooklyn from Chicago in an eight-player trade in June, 1951.  The Cubs sent Pafko, Wayne Terwilliger, Rube Walker and Johnny Schmitz to Brooklyn for Gene Hermanski, Eddie Miksis, Joe Hatten and Bruce Edwards.

Many kids collecting the new, larger-sized 1952 Topps kept their cards bound with rubber bands.  Andy Pafko, #1, landed right on top of the stack.  This meant that Handy Andy got the bulk of the rubber band’s pressure.  It also meant that Pafko was the first card in contact with anything the cards encountered.  When the cards were taken to the neighbor’s for trading or left next to the sandlot during the neighborhood ballgame, poor Pafko was bound to pick up whatever elements hit the top of the stack.

This all created a scarcity of the 1952 Topps Andy Pafko in higher grades.  A high-grade Pafko sold for $81,137 at auction in 2008.  The Pafko in PSA 1 and 2 recently listed on eBay in the $180 to $300 range.  Higher grades (PSA 3) approach the $700 range while PSA 4 and 5 can range from $1500 to $2750.

A 1952 Topps Andy Pafko PSA 8 was listed on eBay for $82,500 in late 2010.