04-16 Card of the Day: Jackie Robinson

Yes, I'm a day late from Jackie Robinson Day. Clearly he should have been the choice on April 15, not April 16, but I had the Ryan Miller one done before I realized it was Robinson Day, so I let it be. Felt the need to explain.

No explanation needed, however, on Robinson or his immeasurable impact on American life. From a card standpoint, I chose '53 because it's the nicest Robinson card I own. It's graded EX-MT 6 by PSA, the leading card grader. (If you're interested in card grading you can use this picture as an example, perhaps, of how nice a card has to be to pull down a 9 or a 10. This card is stunningly beautiful and in amazing condition for its age, but the slight "chipping" along the black border on the bottom probably costs this card a grade or two.)

On its website, PSA provides information and statistics on every card, including what's called the "Population Report". That's a total of how many of each card has been graded, broken down by grade. So we can tell that there are 284 PSA 6 1953 Robinsons, allowing for some that may have been broken out of their hard plastic cases after grading and re-submitted. Still, it's a good gauge. There are 2,329 '53 Robinsons graded by PSA -- a single one that earned a Gem Mint 10 grade. The fact that this was card No. 1 of the set makes it tougher to find in high grade. One reason for that is that collectors will sort their sets by number and then wrap their cards in a rubber band. So the cards No. 1 in sets will often exhibit an indentation across the front where a rubber band once was.

Photo: Mike Schopp (@Schopptalk)

I told a story on the air Monday about the '52 Robinson I owned, then later sold. It's a pretty good story. I had plans on keeping that card until my then-newborn son graduated from college, but instead I sold the card to help buy a house. The '52 has a gorgeous deep red background, arguably, the most attractive Robinson issue. I also like the '56 card, which runs a little bit less expensive than '52 or '53. The '56 is the last Topps set before they went full-photography in 1957, and it happens to be Robinson's last card as a player. 

I've got about two-thirds of a 1953 set, a set that includes my great uncle Cliff Fannin (card No. 203). So, no plans to sell this one!