28% MINT, 6% NM-MT+, 68% NM-MT.  Few mainstream postwar sets represent as much of a challenge to complete in high-grade than the 1961 Topps baseball set.  Loaded with Hall of Famers, the set features large, color photos of the subjects, set in a minimalist design that highlights the photo.  The challenge lies in both the player selection and the condition-sensitivity; MVP and All-Star subsets result in as many as three cards of the game's greatest stars while World Series and Highlights cards add more cards of Mantle, plus cards of Babe Ruth, Walter Johnson, Christy Mathewson and more.  Rookie cards of Hall or Famers Ron Santo, Billy Williams, Juan Marichal combined with a tough high-number run help add to the challenge.  Of course 1961 Topps is notorious for printing flaws like poor centering, print snow, roller lines and fish-eyes, keeping many of the sharpest cards from qualifying for higher technical grades.

Since the dawn of the pandemic, the prospect of building a complete, graded set has become an expensive one, as the day of $4 grading specials is long gone. This has, of course, driven up the demand for complete, graded sets.  Presented here is an extraordinary high-grade complete 1961 Topps set, carefully assembled card-by-card by a dedicated collector who took great care to look for well-centered examples with a minimum of print flaws.  The result is a gorgeous set, strong enough to rank #15 on the current PSA Set Registry with an astronomical set rating of 8.30, and just a few hundredths of a point from leapfrogging the two sets ahead of it.  

The set is of extraordinary high grade, with no card graded below NM-MT 8.  An extraordinary 152 cards have been graded MINT 9, with 37 graded NM-MT+ 8.5 and two graded GEM MINT 10.  The remaining 396 cards have all been graded NM-MT 8.  A breakdown of the highest-grade cards is as follows: PSA GEM MINT 10 (2 cards): #274 Bell, #568 Skowron; MSA MINT 9 (152 cards): 6, 8 (D. Williams), 12, 13, 17, 20 (Roberts), 21, 23, 24, 25, 29, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35 (Santo), 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 45, 53, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 61, 62, 64, 66, 68, 69, 71, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80 (Killebrew), 81, 82, 85, 86, 87, 91, 93, 94, 97, 99, 102, 104, 105, 106 (Herzog), 107, 108, 109, 129, 142, 163, 179, 190, 193, 199, 206, 208, 212, 213, 215, 219, 225, 228 (Yankees Team), 229, 235, 238, 244, 245, 248, 250, 257, 259, 262, 266, 268, 275, 276, 278, 281, 284, 298, 301, 314, 332, 335, 341, 346, 354, 363, 369, 378, 390, 396, 402, 403, 411, 427, 433, 434, 437, 441, 442, 446, 448, 449, 454, 455 (Wynn), 458, 460 (Hodges), 462, 464, 469, 483, 488, 491, 497, 501, 503, 512, 518, 521, 522, 524, 525, 535, 536, 540, 543, 547, 549, 550, 555, 558, 561, 565, 569, 570 (Fox), 573, 574 (Aparicio), 575 (Banks), 581 (Robinson).  PSA NM-MT+ 8.5 (37 cards): 4, 27, 28, 44, 54, 73, 84, 88 (Ashburn), 90, 168, 169, 180, 211 (Gibson), 216, 217, 241, 242, 252, 254, 258, 261, 327, 340, 384, 399, 438, 444, 447, 499, 506, 507, 510, 513, 529, 534, 544, 579 (Mays).

Assembled with a perfectionist's eye, this is a wonderful, high-grade 1961 Topps set, a few small upgrades from cracking the top 12.  Loaded with Hall of Famers, tough high numbers and high-grade, low-pop cards, one of the finest vintage sets we have ever offered.  Note: The PSA published value of this registry set is currently $49,475.  587 cards total.