1959 Home Run Derby Baseball Card Set and Checklist

1959 Home Run Derby Specs

Year: 1960

Title: Home Run Derby

Size: 3-1/4″ by 5-1/4″

Number in Set: 20

1959 Home Run Derby Overview

American Motors distributed the 20-card 1959 Home Run Derby baseball set (collectors have found many cards with dealership names and addresses stamped on them). Player photographs were likely taken in 1959, but the cards came out in 1960 to coincide with the Home Run Derby TV series, which ran from January 9 to July 2, 1960.

The clear photos on the front of the cards have incredible eye appeal (portraits or in-action poses). Beneath the photos are the player’s name and team. The fronts also feature a circular advertisement to see Home Run Derby on TV. Each card has a blank back.

The large size of these cards, along with the thin, glossy, paper-like card stock, made them very tough to protect over the years, so few high-grade examples exist. The majority of cards graded by PSA are 5s.

In the Spring of 2007, Robert Edwards auctioned off the following poster of the set, which displays as an uncut sheet with a promotional message added to the bottom; it sold for $3,525.

1959 Home Run Derby Advertising Poster / Uncut Sheet

Then, in the Summer of 2023, REA sold another copy of the poster for $38,400.

1959 Home Run Derby Examples and Sales

PSA has graded 734, and SGC has graded 142 1959 Home Run Derby cards (November 2025).

The priciest complete set sale recorded in Card Ladder’s database is from the Summer of 2024, when they sold the following cards for $25,200.

But that’s not the priciest Home Run Derby sale I found; that belongs to a PSA 7-graded Mickey Mantle that sold on eBay in July 2021 for $29,985.

Here are a few more high-grade individual card sales from the set:

1959 Home Run Derby Mickey Mantle PSA 7: $28,680 in February 2016
1959 Home Run Derby Willie Mays PSA 7: $19,800 in September 2020
1959 Home Run Derby Mickey Mantle PSA 6: $19,200 in November 2018
1959 Home Run Derby Ed Mathews PSA 7: $13,800 in November 2021
1959 Home Run Derby Al Kaline PSA 8: $12,199 in July 2021

And here’s a closer look at the front and back of a high-grade Hank Aaron example.

1959 Home Run Derby Hank Aaron – Reverse

1959 Home Run Derby Key Cards

These cards are generally very pricey, and like most sets of this era, the Mickey Mantle will be the most expensive card in the set. But if you’re into graded cards, the show’s host, Mark Scott, has the lowest pop count.