The Houston Colt .45s were a Major League Baseball expansion team that began play in 1962 in Houston, Texas as the city’s first MLB franchise. Only two years after beginning play, the team changed its name to the Houston Astros in 1965. As an expansion club, the Colt .45s had a roster filled with players both starting their MLB careers as well as veterans. During the team’s brief tenure under the Colt .45s name, a small number of baseball cards featuring the players on the 1962 and 1963 rosters were produced.
Topps was the dominant baseball card manufacturer in the early 1960s and captured the Colt .45s in their 1962 and 1963 sets. The ’62 Topps set includes all 18 players who made their MLB debut with Houston that season. Notable rookies included Curt Blefary, Dave Giusti, and Eddie Fisher. Top veteran players included Dick Farrell, Bob Aspromonte, and Bob Lillis. Most of the Houston players received fairly low card numbers in the 852-card set, reflecting their status as an expansion team. The Colt .45 logo and team name are clearly visible on the uniform script atop each player’s photo on the card.
Topps followed up with 89 more Colt .45s cards in their 1963 set, which totaled 660 cards that year. Along with holdovers, the ’63 rookies included athletes like Don Nottebart and Eddie Kasko. The designs were largely similar to the prior season but new Houston players integrated into the checklist. Both the ’62 and ’63 Topps sets have maintained solid popularity with collectors given they captured the lone two seasons of cards featuring the original Colt .45s as a franchise name.
Beyond Topps, other minor card companies produced fewer Houston cards during this time. Fleer produced 86 cards of the Colt .45s players in their 1963 set, though they were largely reprints of the Topps photos. Post Cereal included the Colt .45s in their 1963 “Post Part II” released packaged with cereal boxes. This 26-card subset included Houston players Curt Blefary and Eddie Fisher. Other oddball cards came courtesy of Promotions Premiere International, a lesser known manufacturer that created Houston Colt .45s team sets in 1963.
As an expansion team, the Houston Colt .45s had relatively short tenure under that moniker before becoming the Astros. The baseball cards from 1962–1963 released by Topps have become highly collected relics of the franchise’s early years finding a place in the collections of Houston fans and vintage card aficionados alike. Prices for mint condition examples of common Houston players can often sell for $20-50 while stars and rookies have been known to fetch hundreds. The cards not only portray the uniforms and players from the Colt .45s days but serve as a lasting memory of one of the earliest MLB franchises.
While small in quantity compared to longer-tenured clubs, the Houston Colt .45s cards from 1962-1963 maintain an important place in the history of the game and in the collections of astro-philes. Topps’s photographs provide fans with some of the sole remaining visuals of Houston taking the field as the Colt .45s for those two initial campaigns. As the franchise has grown to be one of the American League’s cornerstone teams today, their beginnings will always be linked to that early expansion period symbolized forever through the illustrative cardboard relics featuring the Colt .45s logo and uniforms produced in the early 1960s. Whether chasing rookie stars or filling out team sets, baseball card collectors still eagerly seek out examples of Houston’s first MLB identity over half a century later.