SkyBox International Inc., formerly Impel Marketing, was an American trading card manufacturing company based in

Durham, North Carolina Durham ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of North Carolina and the county seat of Durham County, North Carolina, Durham County. Small portions of the city limits extend into Orange County, North Carolina, Orange County and Wake County, North Carol ...

started in 1990 and operated until 1995.

History

Impel Marketing

In 1990, The Liggett Group Inc., a U.S. tobacco company, announced it would change its name to Brooke Group Ltd. and split into two subsidiaries, Liggett Group Inc. and Impel Marketing Inc. Liggett covered the tobacco business, while Impel covered its non-tobacco activities. At the time of the announcement, the company had small businesses in collectible football and basketball cards as well as confectionery products, both of which used the same distribution channels as cigarettes. Impel was to be headquartered in

and was expected to broaden the scope of the company's sports and entertainment business.

SkyBox

Impel Marketing changed its name to SkyBox International Inc. in April 1992. That same year, the company appointed

Magic Johnson Earvin "Magic" Johnson Jr. (born August 14, 1959) is an American former professional basketball player. He is often regarded as the greatest point guard of all-time and has been compared with Stephen Curry. Johnson played 13 seasons in the ...

as its spokesperson. In June 1993, SkyBox started making milk caps under the name SkyCaps beginning with DC SkyCaps. Later that year, Brooke Group, Inc. spun SkyBox off as a

NASDAQ The Nasdaq Stock Market () (National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations Stock Market) is an American stock exchange based in New York City. It is the most active stock trading venue in the US by volume, and ranked second ...

traded public company. On March 10, 1995,

Marvel Entertainment Group Marvel Entertainment, LLC (formerly Marvel Enterprises) is an American entertainment company founded in June 1998 and based in New York City, New York, formed by the merger of Marvel Entertainment Group and Toy Biz. The company is a wholly own ...

, a comic book publisher and maker of

Fleer The Fleer Corporation, founded by Frank H. Fleer in 1885, was the first company to successfully manufacture bubble gum; it remained a family-owned enterprise until 1989. Fleer originally developed a bubble gum formulation called ''Blibber-Blub ...

baseball and hockey cards, purchased SkyBox for $150 million and was completed two months later in May. Marvel merged SkyBox and Fleer as Fleer/SkyBox International and The company headquarters were moved from Downtown Durham, NC to Mount Laurel, NJ. The company was later sold to

Alex Grass Alexander Grass (August 3, 1927 – August 27, 2009) was an American businessman and lawyer who founded Rite Aid, one of the United States' largest drugstore chains. Early life Grass was born in Scranton, Pennsylvania, to Jewish parents, Louis ...

and his son, Roger Grass in February 1999.

Products

SkyBox produced many licensed non-sports trading cards, including sets for

Disney The Walt Disney Company, commonly known as Disney (), is an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate headquartered at the Walt Disney Studios complex in Burbank, California. Disney was originally founded on October ...

(1995), ''

Star Trek ''Star Trek'' is an American science fiction media franchise created by Gene Roddenberry, which began with the eponymous 1960s television series and quickly became a worldwide pop-culture phenomenon. The franchise has expanded into vari ...

'' (since 1993) and

Marvel Comics Marvel Comics is an American comic book publishing, publisher and the flagship property of Marvel Entertainment, a divsion of The Walt Disney Company since September 1, 2009. Evolving from Timely Comics in 1939, ''Magazine Management/Atlas Co ...

(2010).Marvel 70th anniversary trading cards
on Scifihobby.com SkyBox also produced SkyCaps, its milk caps games brand. Cap series included

DC Comics DC Comics, Inc. (doing business as DC) is an American comic book publisher and the flagship unit of DC Entertainment, a subsidiary of Warner Bros. Discovery. DC Comics is one of the largest and oldest American comic book companies, with thei ...

characters, ''Jurassic Park'', ''Batman: Knightfall,'' and a

National Football League The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league that consists of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the ...

series. One of the first card companies on the Internet, SkyBox branched into multimedia, producing CD-ROM collectibles and games. With '' Skyborg: Into the Vortex'', the company stated, "SkyBox is well-known for its marketing and technological innovations, of which this first-ever interactive, multimedia card line, which is also SkyBox's first CD-ROM product, is only the most recent example."

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Skybox International Publishing companies established in 1990 Defunct manufacturing companies based in North Carolina Trading card companies 1990 establishments in North Carolina 1995 disestablishments in North Carolina Publishing companies disestablished in 1995 1995 mergers and acquisitions