1966 Topps Superman #1 Krypton Is Doomed — The Card That Started a Legend — Card of the Day
Before Luke Skywalker, before Pokémon, before the modern non-sports boom, there was the Man of Steel — and this is the card that started it all for Topps. 1966 Topps Superman #1 "Krypton Is Doomed" is the first card of Topps' first Superman set, and it opens with the moment that defines the entire character: the destruction of Krypton, and the infant Kal-El launched toward Earth.
Topps built the 66-card set around the Adventures of Superman television series starring George Reeves, which had aired for six seasons between 1952 and 1958. The cards used scenes and promotional photos from the show — for an entire generation, Reeves was Superman. The set sold in six-card wax packs for a nickel with a stick of bubble gum in the first printing, a format aimed squarely at kids who had grown up watching the show in syndication.
Which is precisely why the card is so scarce in high grade. The single most famous character in American pop culture, in packs of gum-bribed wax — these cards were traded, pocketed, and destroyed by 1960s children in numbers the hobby is still reckoning with. The population report tells the story: just 132 examples of card #1 have ever been graded by PSA, and only two of them are PSA 10 Gem Mint.
Why Card #1 Matters
Card #1 of any flagship set is the most-handled card in the run — it sits at the top of the stack in every pack, and it's the card kids pull out to show their friends. For the 1966 Superman set, that means "Krypton Is Doomed" took more abuse than any other card in the checklist. The graded population makes the result clear: a 1.52% gem rate, with more than half of all graded examples falling at NM-MT 8 or below.
The scarcity is notable even for vintage non-sports. Compare it to the other most iconic non-sports #1 card in the hobby — 1977 Topps Star Wars #1 Luke Skywalker, our Card of the Day back in CASE #0151 — which sits at nearly 5,000 graded. The Superman set is a decade older and a generation more abused, and the gap shows: nearly 4,900 fewer graded examples, and a PSA 10 population of just two.
Notably, PSA does not even publish a Price Guide value for the Gem Mint 10. With a population of two and sales that rare, there's no price history to hang a figure on — which tells you more about the card's reality than any number could. The MINT 9 carries a $315 guide value, and NM-MT 8 sits at $130.
PSA Population Report
| PSA Grade | Population | Value |
|---|---|---|
| GEM-MT 10 | 2 | — |
| MINT 9 | 9 | $315 |
| NM-MT 8 | 39 | $130 |
| Total Graded (All Grades) | 132 | — |
* Population data as of August 15, 2026. PSA population counts are dynamic and increase as more cards are submitted for grading.
For a generation of collectors, the 1966 Topps Superman set — and card #1 especially — is where the hobby's love affair with the character began. It predates the modern non-sports market by more than a decade, and it set the template the Star Wars card would explode a decade later: a beloved pop-culture property, a simple checklist, and a stack of cards in every kid's pocket.
The verdict: 1966 Topps Superman #1 "Krypton Is Doomed" is one of the most historically significant non-sports cards ever made — the first Superman card from the first Superman set, and with two PSA 10s out of 132 graded, the rarest way to own the moment Krypton fell.
