The 1957 Topps baseball set is one of the most popular in the hobby. It features color photographs and established the card size that the industry adheres to today. The cards also featured, for the first time, multiple-year player statistics. But more importantly, there are a huge number of Hall of Famers in this set.
However, to complete the set, some ancillary cards are needed, and four of them are contest cards. The idea was pretty simple: guess the scores of one American League and one National League game on the card’s date, then mail the card in with Bazooka bubble-gum wrappers (not baseball wrappers). If you guessed both games correctly, you got the prize of your choice; of course, the contest card didn’t have a printed deadline, and one collector requested a prize…59 years later.
1957 Topps Contest Card – Saturday, May 4th
The correct picks were:
Indians 5, Red Sox 2
Redlegs 5, Giants 2
The PSA population report shows 383 graded cards, and in January 2025 a PSA 8 sold for $800 on eBay.
1957 Topps Contest Card – Saturday, May 25th
The correct picks were:
Athletics 5, Tigers 3
Phillies 8, Pirates 6
The PSA population report shows 411 graded cards, and and in January 2025 a PSA 8 sold for $800 on eBay. If that’s too rich for your budget, PSA 6’s are closer to $80.
1957 Topps Contest Card – Saturday, June 22nd
The correct picks were:
Yankees 6, White Sox 5
Dodgers 6, Cardinals 4
The PSA population report shows 461 graded cards. Goldin sold a PSA 8 for $479 in July 2025.
1957 Topps Contest Card – Friday, July 19th
The correct picks were:
Orioles 4, Athletics 2
Braves 3, Giants 1
The July 19th Contest Card is the toughest to find. The PSA population report shows just 251 graded cards, and recently Probstein sold a PSA 5 for $136 on eBay on June 10, 2025 and Greg Morris Cards sold a PSA 7 on eBay for $330 on February 24, 2025. In the Summer of 2021, REA sold a PSA 8 for $840.
The backs of the contest cards are all the same, explaining how to enter. However, each card has different prizes and a faded number (1 through 4) corresponding to the Contest Cards’ order. 1 for May 4th, 2 for May 25th, etc.
In addition to these tough Contest Cards, “complete” 1957 Topps set collectors will also have to find a series of checklists and a Lucky Penny Insert Card. I like these Contest Cards because they have a bit of history, and since people had to send them back to Topps, they are pretty tough to find.
Are you a 1957 Topps collector? What’s your favorite card? Let me know in the comments or over on X.
Happy collecting!
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