2020 October Legends Closing Oct 31 & Nov 1
This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 10/31/2020
Graded GEM MT 10 by PSA. Hall of Famer, in his Rookie Card appearance. That the Reds' Johnny Bench was baseball's best-ever catcher is seldom disputed, but a contention that the offered collectible represents one of his best-imaginable rookie cards is essentially beyond question. Although known as one of those frustrating mid-1960's, dual-player debut pieces that seems forever plagued by centering problems, the offered specimen displays choice alignment side-to-side and top-to-bottom. The universal challenge of corner and edge integrity faced by 1968 Topps alone – in the form of a pebbly looking, patterned border – has been overcome apparently without effort in this particular, unbelievably fresh jewel of a card. All routine matters of focus and print quality are above any fault-finding. Just fifteen copies of Bench's rookie have attained this tier – a laughably small, "statistically insignificant" percentage of the close to 9,000 Bench/Tompkins '68's reviewed to date. Gem Mint condition.