If there is one 1950s rookie basketball card that is sought out by vintage collectors and investors alike, look no further than the 1957 Topps Bill Russell. This is considered Russell’s official rookie card, and the set has frequently been referred to with 1958 or 1959 in past references and sources.

Collectors Dashboard has observed that vintage basketball card collectors have had to fight hard to own a piece of basketball history. It is not just about high prices. The reality is that there are just very few pre-1970 basketball card sets.

Bill Russell may not be alone in the vintage basketball superstar card quest, but his rookie card prices are among the highest of them all. For this reason, the stats of this rookie card are featured even before a summary of his career stats and achievements.

What is this card’s competition for vintage rookie collectors? A prior small format card with a black and white photo from the 1955 All American Sports Club hand cut issue predated this rookie and the 1961 Fleer set has a Russell portrait and In-Action card. That’s basically it for Bill Russell cards from his playing years.

Card #77 of the Hall of Famer has large enough of a population that card sales do occur regularly. That may sound like there is not a scarcity overall, but there is very strong demand for any graded Bill Russell cards with strong eye appeal. There is also overwhelming proof that Bill Russell’s rookie cards sell at a significant premium in any grade.

The Bill Russell 1957 Topps rookie card saw auction selling prices between $200,000 and $390,000 for the highest grades in early 2021.

PSA’s population report in April of 2021 counted 719 base-grade samples, dominated by 177 PSA 4 grades for the “zone.” There were then 119 PSA 5 samples and 153 PSA 6 samples. If you add up the 67 “+” grades and the 165 qualifier grades, that was still a population of just 951 Bill Russell rookie cards that PSA has authenticated and slabbed.

The SGC population report as of April 2021 was also low at 201 graded samples of the old and new grades combined. They only have 1 sample at the SGC 96/9 level and 8 samples at the SGC 88/8 grade. The “in-the-zone” index here with the largest population is 46 graded samples at the SGC 60/5 level.

Having just a PSA 4 and a SGC 60/5 in the “Zone” spot for indexing purposes should help prove that the 1957 Topps set is known for being abusive to collectors. Card centering and the overall printing quality have been constant complaints. Even the PSA 4 (VG) graded samples sold in a range of $10,000 to $20,000 during the first 4 months of 2021. That puts the Russell rookie card at a premium to most of the baseball Hall of Fame rookie cards that also suffer from centering and printing quality.

To further prove the point about quality and scarcity, PSA counted only 47 PSA 8 samples without the 31 qualifier count and only 3 PSA 9s of any caliber. The number of PSA 10s is ZERO in the PSA population report. That is correct, no perfect grades have ever been found.

Bill Russell’s stats as a player should easily compliment his rookie card stats. Russell’s entire professional career was with the Boston Celtics and they won 11 championships in 13 years. This blew away what George Mikan accomplished with the Minneapolis Lakers in the prior years. Russell was a very physical player known for incredible defense, blocking and rebounding. His career average was 22.5 rebounds per game and he was the league leader in rebounds 4 times. He was the MVP 5 times and was an all-star in 12 seasons.

Many sports collectors may have also overlooked that Bill Russell won an Olympic gold medal winner in 1956 and also had 2 NCAA championships with the University of San Francisco.

Joe Orlando’s 2002 book ‘The Top 200 Sportscards in the Hobby’ noted that Bill Russell’s legacy could not be measured by his statistics alone. Orlando also noted that there would also be far fewer samples of the entire 1957 Topps basketball cards had it not been for a dealer discovery (find) of vending boxes, and he pointed out that many of those cards in the find were also not in great condition despite being sealed away for years.

Card dealers and eBay sellers do not want to risk having an underpriced sale of this card. The eBay listings at the time this was posted showed 16 offerings of various PSA, SGC and BVG graded 1957 Topps Bill Russell cards. All of those were listed as “Buy it Now” sales rather than auctions, and some had “or Best Offer” opportunities. The price range among those graded cards on eBay was $10,000 to $75,000 on April 30, 2021 — and the listings is a separate report for grades between 2 and 3 showed successful sales ranging from $6,000 to $17,000 from the prior 90 days.

Every vintage sports card collector and sports card investor now knows why the Bill Russell rookie card from the 1957 Topps set is a must-own treasure.