The Topps Company, Inc. is an American company that manufactures
chewing gum
Chewing gum is a soft, cohesive substance designed to be chewed without being swallowed. Modern chewing gum is composed of gum base, sweeteners, softeners/plasticizers, flavors, colors, and, typically, a hard or powdered polyol coating. Its te ...
,
candy
Candy, also called sweets (British English) or lollies (Australian English
Australian English (AusE, AusEng, AuE, AuEng, en-AU) is the set of varieties of the English language native to Australia. It is the country's common language an ...
, and
collectible
A collectable (collectible or collector's item) is any object regarded as being of value or interest to a collector. Collectable items are not necessarily monetarily valuable or uncommon. There are numerous types of collectables and terms t ...
s. Formerly based in
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
, Topps is best known as a leading producer of
American football
American football (referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada), also known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team with ...
,
baseball
Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding tea ...
,
basketball
Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appr ...
,
ice hockey
Ice hockey (or simply hockey) is a team sport played on ice skates, usually on an ice skating rink with lines and markings specific to the sport. It belongs to a family of sports called hockey. In ice hockey, two opposing teams use ice hock ...
,
soccer
Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 players who primarily use their feet to propel the ball around a rectangular field called a pitch. The objective of the game is ...
, and other sports and
non-sports themed
trading card
A trading card (or collectible card) is a small card, usually made out of paperboard or thick paper, which usually contains an image of a certain person, place or thing (fictional or real) and a short description of the picture, along with other ...
s. Topps also produces cards under the brand names
Allen & Ginter
Allen & Ginter was a Richmond, Virginia, tobacco manufacturing company formed by John F. Allen and Lewis Ginter around 1880. The firm created and marketed the first cigarette cards for collecting and trading in the United States. Some of the nota ...
[ and Bowman.]
In the 2010s, Topps was the only baseball card manufacturer with a license with Major League Baseball
Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball organization and the oldest major professional sports league in the world. MLB is composed of 30 total teams, divided equally between the National League (NL) and the American League (AL), ...
. Following the loss of that license to Fanatics, Inc.
Fanatics, Inc. is an American online manufacturer and retailer of licensed sportswear, sports collectibles, NFTs, trading cards, and sports merchandise, as well as sports betting and iGaming. The company began as an American online retailer of l ...
in 2022; Fanatics acquired Topps in the same year.
Company history
Beginning and consolidation
Topps itself was founded in 1938, but the company can trace its roots back to an earlier firm, American Leaf Tobacco. Founded in 1890 by members of the Saloman family, the American Leaf Tobacco Co. imported tobacco to the United States and sold it to other tobacco companies. Eventually, in 1908, Morris Chigorinsky Shorin
Morris may refer to:
Places
Australia
* St Morris, South Australia, place in South Australia
Canada
* Morris Township, Ontario, now part of the municipality of Morris-Turnberry
* Rural Municipality of Morris, Manitoba
** Morris, Manit ...
came in control of the company.
American Leaf Tobacco encountered difficulties during World War I, as it was cut off from Turkish
Turkish may refer to:
*a Turkic language spoken by the Turks
* of or about Turkey
** Turkish language
*** Turkish alphabet
** Turkish people, a Turkic ethnic group and nation
*** Turkish citizen, a citizen of Turkey
*** Turkish communities and mi ...
supplies of tobacco, and later as a result of the Great Depression
The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...
. Shorin's sons, Abram, Ira, Philip, and Joseph, decided to focus on a new product but take advantage of the company's existing distribution channels. To do this, they relaunched the company as Topps, with the name meant to indicate that it would be "tops" in its field. The chosen field was the manufacture of chewing gum
Chewing gum is a soft, cohesive substance designed to be chewed without being swallowed. Modern chewing gum is composed of gum base, sweeteners, softeners/plasticizers, flavors, colors, and, typically, a hard or powdered polyol coating. Its te ...
, selected after going into the produce
Produce is a generalized term for many farm-produced crops, including fruits and vegetables (grains, oats, etc. are also sometimes considered ''produce''). More specifically, the term ''produce'' often implies that the products are fresh and g ...
business was considered and rejected.
At the time, chewing gum was still a relative novelty sold in individual pieces. Topps's most successful early product was Bazooka
Bazooka () is the common name for a Man-portable anti-tank systems, man-portable recoilless Anti-tank warfare, anti-tank rocket launcher weapon, widely deployed by the United States Army, especially during World War II. Also referred to as the ...
bubble gum
Bubble gum or bubblegum is a type of chewing gum, designed to be inflated out of the mouth as a bubble.
Bubble gum flavor
While there is a bubble gum "flavor" – which various artificial flavorings including esters are mixed to obtain – it ...
, which was packaged with a small comic on the wrapper. Starting in 1950, the company decided to try increasing gum sales by packaging them together with trading cards featuring Western
Western may refer to:
Places
*Western, Nebraska, a village in the US
*Western, New York, a town in the US
*Western Creek, Tasmania, a locality in Australia
*Western Junction, Tasmania, a locality in Australia
*Western world, countries that id ...
character Hopalong Cassidy
Hopalong Cassidy is a fictional cowboy hero created in 1904 by the author Clarence E. Mulford, who wrote a series of short stories and novels based on the character. Mulford portrayed the character as rude, dangerous, and rough-talking. He was ...
( William Boyd); at the time Boyd, as one of the biggest stars of early television, was featured in newspaper articles and on magazine covers, along with a significant amount of "Hoppy" merchandising. When Topps next introduced baseball cards as a product, the cards immediately became its primary emphasis.
The "father of the modern baseball card" was Sy Berger
Seymour Perry Berger (July 12, 1923 – December 14, 2014) was an employee of the Topps company for over 50 years. He is credited as being the co-designer of the 1952 Topps baseball series, as is regarded as "the father of modern baseball cards". ...
. In the autumn of 1951, Berger, then a 28-year-old veteran of World War II, designed the 1952 Topps baseball card
A baseball card is a type of trading card relating to baseball, usually printed on cardboard, silk, or plastic. In the 1950s they came with a stick of gum and a limited number of cards. These cards feature one or more baseball players, teams, sta ...
set with Woody Gelman
Woodrow Gelman (1915 – February 9, 1978) was a publisher, cartoonist, novelist and an artist-writer for both animation and comic books. As the publisher of Nostalgia Press, he pioneered the reprinting of vintage comic strips in quality hardcove ...
on the kitchen table of his apartment on Alabama Avenue in Brooklyn
Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...
. The card design included a player's name, photo, facsimile autograph, team name and logo on the front; and the player's height, weight, bats, throws, birthplace, birthday, stats and a short biography on the back. The basic design is still in use today. Berger would work for Topps for 50 years (1947–97) and serve as a consultant for another five, becoming a well-known figure on the baseball scene, and the face of Topps to major league baseball players, whom he signed up annually and paid in merchandise, like refrigerators and carpeting.
The Shorins, in recognition of his negotiation abilities, sent Sy to London in 1964 to negotiate the rights for Topps to produce Beatles
The Beatles were an English rock band, formed in Liverpool in 1960, that comprised John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr. They are regarded as the most influential band of all time and were integral to the developme ...
trading cards. They also tried hockey. Arriving without an appointment, Sy succeeded by speaking in Yiddish
Yiddish (, or , ''yidish'' or ''idish'', , ; , ''Yidish-Taytsh'', ) is a West Germanic language historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews. It originated during the 9th century in Central Europe, providing the nascent Ashkenazi community with a ver ...
to Brian Epstein
Brian Samuel Epstein (; 19 September 1934 – 27 August 1967) was a British music entrepreneur who managed the Beatles from 1962 until his death in 1967.
Epstein was born into a family of successful retailers in Liverpool, who put him i ...
, the Beatles’ manager.
Berger hired a garbage boat to remove leftover boxes of 1952 baseball cards stored in their warehouse, and rode with them as a tugboat pulled them off the New Jersey
New Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York; on the east, southeast, and south by the Atlantic Ocean; on the west by the Delaware ...
shore. The cards were then dumped into the Atlantic Ocean. The cards included Mickey Mantle's first Topps card, the most valuable card of the modern era. No one at the time, of course, knew the collector's value the cards would one day attain. On August 28, 2022, the Mickey Mantle
Mickey Charles Mantle (October 20, 1931 – August 13, 1995), nicknamed "the Commerce Comet" and "the Mick", was an American professional baseball player. Mantle played his entire Major League Baseball (MLB) career (1951–1968) with the New York ...
baseball card (Topps; #311; SGC MT 9.5) was sold for $12.600 million.
Incorporation
The company began its existence as Topps Chewing Gum, Inc., a partnership between the four Shorin brothers. It later incorporated under New York law in 1947. The entire company originally operated at the Bush Terminal
Industry City (also Bush Terminal) is a historic intermodal shipping, warehousing, and manufacturing complex on the Upper New York Bay waterfront in the Sunset Park neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York City. The northern portion, commonly cal ...
in Brooklyn
Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...
, but production facilities were moved to a plant in Duryea, Pennsylvania
Duryea is a borough in the Greater Pittston area of Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, United States, south of Scranton. The Susquehanna River marks Duryea's western boundary, and the Lackawanna River flows through Duryea. It was incorporated as a boro ...
, in 1965 (the Duryea plant closed in 1997). Corporate offices remained at 254 36th Street in Brooklyn, a location in the waterfront district by the Gowanus Expressway
Interstate 278 (I-278) is an auxiliary Interstate Highway in New Jersey and New York in the United States. The road runs from US Route 1/9 (US 1/9) in Linden, New Jersey, northeast to the Bruckner Interchange in the New Yor ...
. In 1994, the headquarters relocated to One Whitehall Street in lower Manhattan
Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...
.
After being privately held for several decades, Topps offered stock to the public for the first time in 1972 with the assistance of investment banking firm White, Weld & Co. The company returned to private ownership when it was acquired in a leveraged buyout
A leveraged buyout (LBO) is one company's acquisition of another company using a significant amount of borrowed money (leverage) to meet the cost of acquisition. The assets of the company being acquired are often used as collateral for the loan ...
led by Forstmann Little & Company
Forstmann, Little & Company was a private equity firm, specializing in leveraged buyouts (LBOs). At its peak in the late 1990s, Forstmann Little was among the largest private equity firms globally. Ultimately, the firm would suffer from the burs ...
in 1984. The new ownership group again made Topps into a publicly traded company in 1987, now renamed to The Topps Company, Inc. In this incarnation, the company was reincorporated under Delaware General Corporation Law
The Delaware General Corporation Law (Title 8, Chapter 1 of the Delaware Code) is the statute of the Delaware Code that governs corporate law in the U.S. state of Delaware. Adopted in 1899, the statute has since seen Delaware become the most imp ...
for legal reasons, but company headquarters remained in New York. Management was left in the hands of the Shorin family throughout all of these maneuverings.
On October 12, 2007, Topps was acquired by Michael Eisner's The Tornante Company
The Tornante Company, LLC is an American privately held investment firm founded in 2005 and owned by former Paramount Pictures and The Walt Disney Company CEO Michael Eisner. Tornante invests in, acquires, and operates media and entertainment c ...
and Madison Dearborn Partners
Madison Dearborn Partners (MDP) is an American private equity firm specializing in leveraged buyouts of privately held or publicly traded companies, or divisions of larger companies; recapitalizations of family-owned or closely held companies; ba ...
. Under Eisner's direction, Topps began to expand into the entertainment and media business with plans for a ''Bazooka Joe
Bazooka Joe is a comic strip character featured on small comics included in individually wrapped pieces of Bazooka bubble gum. He wears a black eyepatch, lending him a distinctive appearance. He is one of the more recognizable American advertisin ...
'' movie. Former television executive Staci Weiss was hired as Topps's head of entertainment to develop projects based on Topps properties, including ''Garbage Pail Kids
''Garbage Pail Kids'' is a series of sticker trading cards produced by the Topps Company, originally released in 1985 and designed to parody the ''Cabbage Patch Kids'' dolls, which were popular at the time.
Each sticker card features a Garbage ...
, Wacky Packages
''Wacky Packages'' are a series of humorous trading cards featuring parodies of consumer products. The cards were produced by Topps beginning in 1967, first in die-cut, then in peel-and-stick sticker format. There were 16 series produced betwe ...
, Dinosaurs Attack!, Mech Warrior'' and ''Attax''.
Topps Digital
In 2012, Topps began creating digital sports cards, starting with the Topps Bunt baseball card mobile app. After releasing Bunt in 2013 and finding success with it, they expanded their sports card market into other apps including the Kick soccer app in August 2014, Huddle Football app in April 2016, and Skate hockey app in 2017.
Along with sports cards, Topps also expanded its marketplace for collectors of digital goods to include non-sports cards on mobile devices. In March 2015 they released their Star Wars
''Star Wars'' is an American epic film, epic space opera multimedia franchise created by George Lucas, which began with the Star Wars (film), eponymous 1977 film and quickly became a worldwide popular culture, pop-culture Cultural impact of S ...
: Card Trader app, and in May 2016 they released a Walking Dead trading card app. Following the success of their assortment of digital trading card apps, they once again expanded their marketplace for digital collectors a few years later, releasing a Marvel
Marvel may refer to:
Business
* Marvel Entertainment, an American entertainment company
** Marvel Comics, the primary imprint of Marvel Entertainment
** Marvel Universe, a fictional shared universe
** Marvel Music, an imprint of Marvel Comics
...
trading card app in the spring of 2019 and their 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 ...
trading card app in November of that same year.
In March 2020, Topps announced a collaboration with WAX.io to make their cards tradable on the blockchain
A blockchain is a type of distributed ledger technology (DLT) that consists of growing lists of records, called ''blocks'', that are securely linked together using cryptography. Each block contains a cryptographic hash of the previous block, a ...
. As of December 2020, Topps has only made Garbage Pail Kids
''Garbage Pail Kids'' is a series of sticker trading cards produced by the Topps Company, originally released in 1985 and designed to parody the ''Cabbage Patch Kids'' dolls, which were popular at the time.
Each sticker card features a Garbage ...
cards available to traders via blockchain but they have announced Alien
Alien primarily refers to:
* Alien (law), a person in a country who is not a national of that country
** Enemy alien, the above in times of war
* Extraterrestrial life, life which does not originate from Earth
** Specifically, intelligent extrater ...
Quadrilogy collectibles will be coming soon.
In April 2021, Topps announced plans to go public via a merger with Mudrick Capital Acquisition Corporation II, a publicly traded special purpose acquisition company (SPAC). Michael Eisner's firm The Tornante Company
The Tornante Company, LLC is an American privately held investment firm founded in 2005 and owned by former Paramount Pictures and The Walt Disney Company CEO Michael Eisner. Tornante invests in, acquires, and operates media and entertainment c ...
planned to roll its stake into the new company while Mudrick Capital would lead an additional investment of $250 million. The deal valued Topps at $1.3 billion.[Amelia Lucas]
"Topps to go public through SPAC deal as baseball card company ventures into NFTs,"
CNBC.com, April 6, 2021. However, reports surfaced within six months of their initial plans that Mudrick Capital Management had backed out of the investment deal.
In August 2021, it was reported that Fanatics
Fanaticism (from the Latin adverb ''fānāticē'' ren-''fānāticus''; enthusiastic, ecstatic; raging, fanatical, furious is a belief or behavior involving uncritical zeal or an obsessive enthusiasm.
Definitions
Philosopher George Santayana ...
acquired future exclusive licenses with Major League Baseball and the MLB Players Association to produce baseball cards.[Dan Hajducky]
"Fanatics strikes deal to become exclusive licensee for MLB cards,"
ESPN.com, August 19, 2021. In January 2022, Fanatics announced they had acquired Topps for US$500 million.
Topps Europe Ltd.
Purchase of Merlin
Topps has a European division, which is based in Milton Keynes
Milton Keynes ( ) is a city and the largest settlement in Buckinghamshire, England, about north-west of London. At the 2021 Census, the population of its urban area was over . The River Great Ouse forms its northern boundary; a tributary ...
, UK. From this office products are launched across Europe, including Spain, France, Germany, Norway, and Italy. This division also co-ordinates products launches across the many other international markets including the Far East, Australia, and South Africa.
In 1994 Merlin acquired the Premier League
The Premier League (legal name: The Football Association Premier League Limited) is the highest level of the men's English football league system. Contested by 20 clubs, it operates on a system of promotion and relegation with the English Foo ...
license allowing the company to exclusively publish the only official Premier League sticker and album collection in the UK. The initial success of the Premier League stickers and album collection was so great that it took even Merlin by surprise, with reprint after reprint being produced.
In 1995, the Topps Company Inc. completed its takeover of Merlin Publishing
Merlin Publishing Limited, commonly known as Merlin and sometimes branded as Merlin Collections was a British publishing firm who released a variety of sticker collections during the late 1980s and 1990s, they also designed trading cards, card ...
. Merlin's official company name changed to Topps Europe Limited, but its products still carried the Merlin brand until 2008 as it was easily recognized by consumers.
Topps Europe Limited continues to produce a wide and varied range of sports and entertainment collectibles across Europe. Its range of products now includes stickers, albums, cards and binders, magazines, stationery, and temporary tattoos.
Topps Europe Ltd. products
Topps Europe Ltd. has continued to launch hugely successful products across Europe. Some of the most successful licenses have included ''WWE'', ''Pokémon'', ''Doctor Who'', ''High School Musical'' and ''SpongeBob.''
Topps ''Merlin'' branded Premier League
The Premier League (legal name: The Football Association Premier League Limited) is the highest level of the men's English football league system. Contested by 20 clubs, it operates on a system of promotion and relegation with the English Foo ...
sticker album
A sticker album is a book in which collectable stickers are stuck into designated sections. Sticker album themes can be sporting events such as the FIFA World Cup, English Premier League or TV shows, Movies, Animals or Music. Panini were the fi ...
s have been popular since their launch in 1994, and in 2007 Topps acquired the Premier League rights for trading cards. Previously, the trading card rights were held by Magic Box International who produced the ''Shoot Out'' cards from the 2003/04 to 2006/07 seasons. Match Attax
The Topps Company, Inc. is an American company that manufactures chewing gum, candy, and collectibles. Formerly based in New York City, Topps is best known as a leading producer of American football, baseball, basketball, ice hockey, soccer, ...
, the official Premier League trading card game, was the biggest selling boys’ collectible in the UK three years running. Being sold across the globe in a number of countries, the collection also holds the title of the biggest selling sports collectible in the world. It is estimated that around 1.5 million children collect it in the UK alone.
Following on from the acquisition of Premier League trading cards rights, in the spring of 2008 Topps acquired the exclusive rights to the DFL Deutsche Fussball Liga GmbH for trading cards and stickers until the Bundesliga Season 2010/11. Bundesliga Match Attax was launched in January 2009 and is now available in over 40,000 stockists. The collection is the first of its kind in Germany and has become one of the biggest selling collections in the country.
As of February 2016 Topps Match Attax dominated the secondary UK card trading market occupying two out of the top three spots on th
www.stickerpoints.com
'most popular soccer collection' list.
Topps baseball cards: A history
Entry into the baseball card market
In 1951, Topps produced its first baseball cards in two different sets known today as ''Red Backs'' and ''Blue Backs''. Each set contained 52 cards, like a deck of playing card
A playing card is a piece of specially prepared card stock, heavy paper, thin cardboard, plastic-coated paper, cotton-paper blend, or thin plastic that is marked with distinguishing motifs. Often the front (face) and back of each card has a fi ...
s, and in fact the cards could be used to play a game that would simulate the events of a baseball game. Also like playing cards, the cards had rounded corners and were blank on one side, which was colored either red or blue (hence the names given to these sets). The other side featured the portrait of a player within a baseball diamond in the center, and in opposite corners a picture of a baseball
Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding tea ...
together with the event for that card, such as "fly out
In baseball, the rules state that a batted ball is considered in flight when it has not yet touched any object other than a fielder or his equipment. Such a ball can be caught by a fielder to put the batter out.
Once a batted ball touches the g ...
" or "single
Single may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media
* Single (music), a song release
Songs
* "Single" (Natasha Bedingfield song), 2004
* "Single" (New Kids on the Block and Ne-Yo song), 2008
* "Single" (William Wei song), 2016
* "Single", by ...
."
Topps changed its approach in 1952, this time creating a much larger (407 total) set of baseball cards and packaging them with its signature product, bubble gum
Bubble gum or bubblegum is a type of chewing gum, designed to be inflated out of the mouth as a bubble.
Bubble gum flavor
While there is a bubble gum "flavor" – which various artificial flavorings including esters are mixed to obtain – it ...
. The company also decided that its playing card model was too small (2 inches by 2-5/8 inches) and changed the dimensions to 2-5/8 inches by 3-3/4 inches with square corners. The cards now had a color portrait
A portrait is a portrait painting, painting, portrait photography, photograph, sculpture, or other artistic representation of a person, in which the face and its expressions are predominant. The intent is to display the likeness, Personality type ...
on one side, with statistical and biographical information on the other. This set became a landmark in the baseball card industry, and today the company considers this its first true baseball card set. Many of the oil paintings for the sets were rendered by artist Gerry Dvorak, who also worked as an animator for Famous Studios
Famous Studios (renamed Paramount Cartoon Studios in 1956) was the first animation division of the film studio Paramount Pictures from 1942 to 1967. Famous was founded as a successor company to Fleischer Studios, after Paramount seized contro ...
. In 1957, Topps shrank the dimensions of its cards slightly, to 2-1/2 inches by 3-1/2 inches, setting a standard that remains the basic format for most sports card
A trading card (or collectible card) is a small card, usually made out of paperboard or thick paper, which usually contains an image of a certain person, place or thing (fictional or real) and a short description of the picture, along with other ...
s produced in the United States. It was at this time Topps began to use color photographs in their set.
The cards were released in several series over the course of the baseball season, a practice Topps would continue with its baseball cards until 1974. However, the last series of each year did not sell as well, as the baseball season wore on and popular attention began to turn towards American football
American football (referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada), also known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team with ...
. Thus cards from the last series are much scarcer and are typically more valuable (even commons) than earlier series of the same year. Topps was left with a substantial amount of surplus stock in 1952, which it largely disposed of by dumping many cards into the Atlantic
The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's five oceans, with an area of about . It covers approximately 20% of Earth's surface and about 29% of its water surface area. It is known to separate the " Old World" of Africa, Europe an ...
. In later years, Topps either printed series in smaller quantities late in the season or destroyed excess cards. As a result, cards with higher numbers from this period are rarer than low numbers in the same set, and collectors will pay significantly higher prices for them. The last series in 1952 started with card No. 311, which is Topps's first card of Mickey Mantle
Mickey Charles Mantle (October 20, 1931 – August 13, 1995), nicknamed "the Commerce Comet" and "the Mick", was an American professional baseball player. Mantle played his entire Major League Baseball (MLB) career (1951–1968) with the New York ...
, and remains the most valuable Topps card ever (and, as of August 28, 2022, the most valuable trading card of all). On August 28, 2022, the Mickey Mantle
Mickey Charles Mantle (October 20, 1931 – August 13, 1995), nicknamed "the Commerce Comet" and "the Mick", was an American professional baseball player. Mantle played his entire Major League Baseball (MLB) career (1951–1968) with the New York ...
baseball card (Topps; #311; SGC MT 9.5) was sold for $12.600 million. This 1952 Topps Mantle is often mistakenly referred to as Mantle's rookie card, but that honor belongs to his 1951 Bowman card (which is worth less than the 1952 Topps card).
The combination of baseball cards and bubble gum was popular among young boys, and given the mediocre quality of the gum, the cards quickly became the primary attraction. In fact, the gum eventually became a hindrance because it tended to stain the cards, thus impairing their value to collectors who wanted to keep them in pristine condition. It (along with the traditional gray cardboard) was finally dropped from baseball card packs in 1992, although Topps began its Heritage line, which included gum, in the year 2001.
Competition for player contracts
During this period, baseball card manufacturers generally obtained the rights to depict players on merchandise by signing individual players to contracts for the purpose. Topps first became active in this process through an agent
Agent may refer to:
Espionage, investigation, and law
*, spies or intelligence officers
* Law of agency, laws involving a person authorized to act on behalf of another
** Agent of record, a person with a contractual agreement with an insuranc ...
called Players Enterprises in July 1950, in preparation for its first 1951 set. The later acquisition of rights to additional players allowed Topps to release its second series.
This promptly brought Topps into furious competition with Bowman Gum
The Bowman Gum Company was a Philadelphia-based manufacturer of bubble gum and trading cards. It was founded by Jacob Warren Bowman in 1927.
Bowman produced a line of baseball cards, which were highly popular in the 1940s. Bowman also produced ...
, another company producing baseball cards. Bowman had become the primary maker of baseball cards and driven out several competitors by signing its players to exclusive contracts. The language of these contracts focused particularly on the rights to sell cards with chewing gum
Chewing gum is a soft, cohesive substance designed to be chewed without being swallowed. Modern chewing gum is composed of gum base, sweeteners, softeners/plasticizers, flavors, colors, and, typically, a hard or powdered polyol coating. Its te ...
, which had already been established in the 1930s as a popular product to pair with baseball cards.
To avoid the language of Bowman's existing contracts, Topps sold its 1951 cards with caramel candy
Caramel ( or ) is an orange-brown confectionery product made by heating a range of sugars. It can be used as a flavoring in puddings and desserts, as a filling in bonbons, or as a topping for ice cream and custard.
The process of caramelization ...
instead of gum. However, because Bowman had signed many players in 1950 to contracts for that year, plus a renewal option for one year, Topps included in its own contracts the rights to sell cards with gum starting in 1952 (as it ultimately did). Topps also tried to establish exclusive rights through its contracts by having players agree not to grant similar rights to others, or renew existing contracts except where specifically noted in the contract.
Bowman responded by adding chewing gum "or confections" to the exclusivity language of its 1951 contracts, and also sued Topps in U.S. federal court
The federal judiciary of the United States is one of the three branches of the federal government of the United States organized under the United States Constitution and laws of the federal government. The U.S. federal judiciary consists primaril ...
. The lawsuit
-
A lawsuit is a proceeding by a party or parties against another in the civil court of law. The archaic term "suit in law" is found in only a small number of laws still in effect today. The term "lawsuit" is used in reference to a civil actio ...
alleged infringement on Bowman's trademarks, unfair competition, and contractual interference. The court rejected Bowman's attempt to claim a trademark on the word "baseball" in connection with the sale of gum, and disposed of the unfair competition claim because Topps had made no attempt to pass its cards off as being made by Bowman. The contract issue proved more difficult because it turned on the dates when a given player signed contracts with each company, and whether the player's contract with one company had an exception for his contract with the other.
As the contract situation was sorted out, several Topps sets during these years had a few "missing" cards, where the numbering of the set skips several numbers because they had been assigned to players whose cards could not legally be distributed. The competition, both for consumer attention and player contracts, continued until 1956, when Topps bought out Bowman. This left Topps as the predominant producer of baseball cards for the next quarter-century.
Consolidation of a monopoly
The next company to challenge Topps was 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-Blu ...
, another gum manufacturer. Fleer signed star Ted Williams
Theodore Samuel Williams (August 30, 1918 – July 5, 2002) was an American professional baseball player and manager. He played his entire 19-year Major League Baseball (MLB) career, primarily as a left fielder, for the Boston Red Sox from 1939 ...
to an exclusive contract in 1959 and sold a set of cards oriented around him. Williams retired the next year, so Fleer began adding around him other mostly retired players in a ''Baseball Greats'' series, which was sold with gum. Two of these sets were produced before Fleer finally tried a 67-card set of currently active players in 1963. However, Topps held onto the rights of most players and the set was not particularly successful.
Stymied, Fleer turned its efforts to supporting an administrative complaint filed by the Federal Trade Commission
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is an independent agency of the United States government whose principal mission is the enforcement of civil (non-criminal) antitrust law and the promotion of consumer protection. The FTC shares jurisdiction ov ...
, alleging that Topps was engaging in unfair competition through its aggregation of exclusive contracts. A hearing examiner ruled against Topps in 1965, but the Commission reversed this decision on appeal. The Commission concluded that because the contracts only covered the sale of cards with gum, competition was still possible by selling cards with other small, low-cost products. However, Fleer chose not to pursue such options and instead sold its remaining player contracts to Topps for $395,000 in 1966. The decision gave Topps an effective monopoly of the baseball card market.
That same year, however, Topps faced an attempt to undermine its position from the nascent players' union
The Association Football Players' and Trainers' Union (AFPTU), commonly known as the Players' Union, in the United Kingdom was the original association that became the Professional Footballers' Association. Their stated aims were freedom of move ...
, the Major League Baseball Players Association
The Major League Baseball Players Association (or MLBPA) is the union representing all current Major League Baseball players. All players, managers, coaches, and athletic trainers who hold or have held a signed contract with a Major League club ...
. Struggling to raise funds, the MLBPA discovered that it could generate significant income by pooling the publicity rights of its members and offering companies a group license
A license (or licence) is an official permission or permit to do, use, or own something (as well as the document of that permission or permit).
A license is granted by a party (licensor) to another party (licensee) as an element of an agreeme ...
to use their images on various products. After putting players on Coca-Cola
Coca-Cola, or Coke, is a carbonated soft drink manufactured by the Coca-Cola Company. Originally marketed as a temperance drink and intended as a patent medicine, it was invented in the late 19th century by John Stith Pemberton in Atlanta ...
bottlecaps for $120,000, the union concluded that the Topps contracts did not pay players adequately for their rights.
MLBPA executive director Marvin Miller
Marvin Julian Miller (April 14, 1917 – November 27, 2012) was an American baseball executive who served as the executive director of the Major League Baseball Players Association (MLBPA) from 1966 to 1982. Under Miller's direction, the players ...
then approached Joel Shorin, the president of Topps, about renegotiating these contracts. At this time, Topps had every major league player under contract, generally for five years plus renewal options, so Shorin declined. After continued discussions went nowhere, the union before the 1968 season asked its members to stop signing renewals on these contracts, and offered Fleer the exclusive rights to market cards of most players (with gum) starting in 1973. Although Fleer declined the proposal, by the end of the year Topps had agreed to double its payments to each player from $125 to $250, and also to begin paying players a percentage of Topps's overall sales. The figure for individual player contracts has since increased to $500.
As a byproduct of this history, Topps continues to use individual player contracts as the basis for its baseball card sets today. This contrasts with other manufacturers, who all obtain group licenses from the MLBPA. The difference has occasionally affected whether specific players are included in particular sets. Players who decline to sign individual contracts will not have Topps cards even when the group licensing system allows other manufacturers to produce cards of the player, as happened with Alex Rodriguez
Alexander Emmanuel Rodriguez (born July 27, 1975), nicknamed "A-Rod", is an American former professional baseball shortstop and third baseman, businessman and philanthropist. Rodriguez played 22 seasons in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the ...
early in his career. On the other hand, if a player opts out of group licensing, as Barry Bonds
Barry Lamar Bonds (born July 24, 1964) is an American former professional baseball left fielder who played 22 seasons in Major League Baseball (MLB). Bonds was a member of the Pittsburgh Pirates from 1986 to 1992 and the San Francisco Giants f ...
did in 2004, then manufacturers who depend on the MLBPA system will have no way of including him. Topps, however, can negotiate individually and was belatedly able to create a 2004 card of Bonds. In addition, Topps is the only manufacturer able to produce cards of players who worked as replacement players during the 1994 baseball strike
File:1994 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 1994 Winter Olympics are held in Lillehammer, Norway; The Kaiser Permanente building after the 1994 Northridge earthquake; A model of the MS Estonia, which Sinking of the MS Estonia, sank in ...
, since they are barred from union membership and participation in the group licensing program.
The monopoly and its end
A semblance of competition returned to the baseball card market in the 1970s when Kellogg's
The Kellogg Company, doing business as Kellogg's, is an American multinational food manufacturing company headquartered in Battle Creek, Michigan, United States. Kellogg's produces cereal and convenience foods, including crackers and toaste ...
began producing "3-D" cards and inserting them in boxes of breakfast cereal
Cereal, formally termed breakfast cereal (and further categorized as cold cereal or warm cereal), is a traditional breakfast food made from processed cereal grains. It is traditionally eaten as part of breakfast, or a snack food, primarily in ...
(originally Corn Flakes
Corn flakes, or cornflakes, are a breakfast cereal made from toasting flakes of corn (maize). The cereal, originally made with wheat, was created by Will Kellogg in 1894 for patients at the Battle Creek Sanitarium where he worked with his broth ...
, later Raisin Bran
Raisin bran (sultana bran in some countries; see sultana grape) is a breakfast cereal containing raisins and bran flakes. Raisin bran is manufactured by several companies under a variety of brand names, including the popularly known Kellogg's R ...
and other Kellogg's brands). The Kellogg's sets contained fewer cards than Topps sets, and the cards served as an incentive to buy the cereal, rather than being the intended focus of the purchase, as tended to be the case for cards distributed with smaller items like candy or gum. Topps took no action to stop them.
The Topps monopoly on baseball cards was finally broken by a lawsuit decided by federal judge Clarence Charles Newcomer
Clarence Charles Newcomer (January 18, 1923 – August 22, 2005) was a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania for more than 33 years.
Education and career
Newcomer was born in M ...
in 1980, in which the judge ended Topps Chewing Gum's exclusive right to sell baseball card
A baseball card is a type of trading card relating to baseball, usually printed on cardboard, silk, or plastic. In the 1950s they came with a stick of gum and a limited number of cards. These cards feature one or more baseball players, teams, sta ...
s, allowing the Fleer Corporation
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-Blu ...
to compete in the market. That let Fleer and another company, Donruss
Donruss was a US-based trading cards manufacturing company founded in 1954 and acquired by the Panini Group in 2009. The company started in the 1950s, producing confectionery, evolved into Donruss and started producing trading cards. During th ...
, enter the market in 1981. Fleer and Donruss began making large, widely distributed sets to compete directly with Topps, packaged with gum. When the ruling was overturned on appeal in August 1981, Topps appeared to have regained its monopoly, but both of its competitors instead began packaging their cards with other baseball items—logo stickers from Fleer, and cardboard puzzle pieces from Donruss. The puzzles, created by baseball artists Dick Perez
Dick Perez (born 1940) is an American artist known for his baseball paintings for the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum and the Philadelphia Phillies. He is also known for his paintings for various baseball card series. Perez's 2010 book ...
for Perez Steele, included Warren Spahn, Hank Aaron, Mickey Mantle and a dozen others. Other manufacturers later followed, but Topps remains one of the leading brands in the baseball card hobby
A hobby is considered to be a regular activity that is done for enjoyment, typically during one's leisure time. Hobbies include collecting themed items and objects, engaging in creative and artistic pursuits, playing Sport, sports, or pursu ...
. In response to the competition, Topps began regularly issuing additional "Traded" sets featuring players who had changed teams since the main set was issued, following up on an idea it had experimented with a few years earlier.
Topps in the modern baseball card industry
While "Traded" or "Update" sets were originally conceived to deal with players who changed teams, they became increasingly important for another reason. In order to fill out a 132-card set (the number of cards that fit on a single sheet of the uncut cardboard used in the production process), it would contain a number of rookie
A rookie is a person new to an occupation, profession, or hobby. In sports, a ''rookie'' is a professional athlete in their first season (or year).
In contrast with a veteran who has experience and expertise, a rookie is usually inexperienced ...
players who had just reached the major leagues and not previously appeared on a card. They also included a few single cards of players who previously appeared in the regular set on a multi-player "prospects" card; one notable example is the 1982 Topps Traded Cal Ripken Jr.
Calvin Edwin Ripken Jr. (born August 24, 1960), nicknamed "Iron man (sports streak), The Iron Man", is an American former baseball shortstop and third baseman who played 21 seasons in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the Baltimore Orioles (1981 ...
Since a "rookie card" is typically the most valuable for any given player, the companies now competed to be the first to produce a card of players who might be future stars. Increasingly, they also included highly touted minor league players who had yet to play in the major leagues. For example, Topps obtained a license to produce cards featuring the U.S. Olympic baseball team and thus produced the first card of Mark McGwire
Mark David McGwire (born October 1, 1963), nicknamed "Big Mac", is an American former professional baseball first baseman who played 16 seasons in Major League Baseball (MLB) from 1986 to 2001 for the Oakland Athletics and the St. Louis Cardi ...
prior to his promotion to the major league level, and one that would become quite valuable to collectors for a time. This card from the 1984 squad appeared in Topps's regular 1985 set, but by the next Olympic cycle the team's cards had been migrated to the "Traded" set. As a further step in this race, Topps resurrected its former competitor Bowman as a subsidiary brand in 1989, with Bowman sets similarly chosen to include a lot of young players with bright prospects.
Also beginning in 1989 with the entry of Upper Deck
The Upper Deck Company, LLC (colloquially as Upper Deck and Upper Deck Authenticated, Ltd. in the UK), founded in 1988, is a private company primarily known for producing trading cards. Its headquarters are in Carlsbad, California, United State ...
into the market, card companies began to develop higher-end cards using improved technology. Following Topps's example, other manufacturers now began to diversify their product lines into different sets, each catering to a different niche of the market. The initial Topps effort at producing a premium line of cards, in 1991, was called Stadium Club. Topps continued adding more sets and trying to distinguish them from each other, as did its competitors. The resulting glut of different baseball sets caused the MLBPA to take drastic measures as the market for them deteriorated. The union announced that for 2006, licenses would only be granted to Topps and Upper Deck, the number of different products would be limited, and players would not appear on cards before reaching the major leagues.
Although most of its products were distributed through retail stores and hobby shops, Topps also attempted to establish itself online, where a significant secondary market for sports cards was developing. Working in partnership with eBay
eBay Inc. ( ) is an American multinational e-commerce company based in San Jose, California, that facilitates consumer-to-consumer and business-to-consumer sales through its website. eBay was founded by Pierre Omidyar in 1995 and became a ...
, Topps launched a new brand of sports cards called etopps in December 2000. These cards are sold exclusively online through individual "IPOs
In demonology, Ipos is an Earl and powerful Prince of Hell (a Duke to some authors) who has thirty-six legions of demons under his command. He knows and can reveal all things, past, present and future (only the future to some authors, and past ...
" (or, "Initial Player Offering") in which the card is offered for usually a week at the IPO price. The quantity sold depends on how many people offer to buy, but is limited to a certain maximum. After a sale, the cards are held in a climate-controlled warehouse unless the buyer requests delivery, and the cards can be traded online without changing hands except in the virtual sense.
Topps also acquired ThePit.com, a startup company that earlier in 2000 had launched a site for online stock-market style card trading. The purchase was for $5.7 million cash in August 2001 after Topps had earlier committed to invest in a round of venture capital financing
Venture capital financing is a type of funding by venture capital. It is private equity capital that can be provided at various stages or funding rounds. Common funding rounds include early-stage seed funding in high-potential, growth companies ( ...
for the company. This undertaking was not very successful, however, and Topps unloaded the site on Naxcom in January 2006. The amount of the transaction was not disclosed, but Topps charged a $3.7 million after-tax loss on its books in connection with the sale.
In 2002, Topps revived the T206
T206 is a cigarette card, tobacco card set issued from 1909 to 1911 in cigarette pack, cigarette and loose tobacco packs through 16 different brands owned by the American Tobacco Company. It is a landmark set in the history of baseball card collect ...
set originally released in 1909–11 by the American Tobacco Company
The American Tobacco Company was a tobacco company founded in 1890 by J. B. Duke through a merger between a number of U.S. tobacco manufacturers including Allen and Ginter and Goodwin & Company. The company was one of the original 12 members of ...
under the "Topps 206" brand, with current players. That first revival included the T206 Honus Wagner
The T206 Honus Wagner baseball card depicts the Pittsburgh Pirates' Honus Wagner, known as "The Flying Dutchman,” a dead-ball era baseball player who is widely considered to be one of the best players of all time. The card was designed and issue ...
iconic card, with blue background instead of the original orange. A second revival would be launched in 2010.[Topps 206 Baseball]
on Topps.com
Topps grabbed collectors' attention early in 2007 when the new card of Yankees
The New York Yankees are an American professional baseball team based in the New York City borough of the Bronx. The Yankees compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) East division. They are one of ...
' shortstop Derek Jeter
Derek Sanderson Jeter ( ; born June 26, 1974) is an American former professional baseball shortstop, businessman, and baseball executive. As a player, Jeter spent his entire 20-year Major League Baseball (MLB) career with the New York Yankees ...
was found to have been altered to include an image of Mickey Mantle standing in the dugout and President
President most commonly refers to:
*President (corporate title)
*President (education), a leader of a college or university
*President (government title)
President may also refer to:
Automobiles
* Nissan President, a 1966–2010 Japanese ful ...
George W. Bush
George Walker Bush (born July 6, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 43rd president of the United States from 2001 to 2009. A member of the Republican Party, Bush family, and son of the 41st president George H. W. Bush, he ...
walking through the stands.
In 2009, Topps became the first official baseball card of MLB in over thirty years. The first product to fall under the deal was the 2010 Topps Baseball Series 1. The deal gave Topps exclusivity for the use of MLB and club trademarks and logos on cards, stickers and some other products featuring major league players. The exclusive deal was extended in 2013, then extended again in 2018. It is currently scheduled to go through at least 2025.
Again in 2020, the company released a new T206 collection divided into five different series, with the first (50 cards) being released in May 2020.[2020 TOPPS 206 BASEBALL CHECKLIST, TEAM SET LISTS AND DETAILS]
by RYAN CRACKNELL at Beckett, Sep 2020 The collection, named "Topps 206", include players from both, Major
Major (commandant in certain jurisdictions) is a military rank of commissioned officer status, with corresponding ranks existing in many military forces throughout the world. When used unhyphenated and in conjunction with no other indicators ...
and Minor
Minor may refer to:
* Minor (law), a person under the age of certain legal activities.
** A person who has not reached the age of majority
* Academic minor, a secondary field of study in undergraduate education
Music theory
*Minor chord
** Barb ...
League. The fifth series was released in September 2020.
Card design
Although Topps did not invent the concept of baseball cards, its dominance in the field basically allowed the company to define people's expectations of what a baseball card would look like. In addition to establishing a standard size, Topps developed various design elements that are considered typical of baseball cards. Some of these were the company's own innovations, such as the 1971 Football Set, while some were ideas borrowed from others that Topps helped popularize.
Use of statistics
One of the features that contributed significantly to Topps's success beginning with the 1952 set was providing player statistics. At the time, complete and reliable baseball statistics
Baseball statistics play an important role in evaluating the progress of a player or team.
Since the flow of a baseball game has natural breaks to it, and normally players act individually rather than performing in clusters, the sport lends itsel ...
for all players were not widely available, so Topps actually compiled the information itself from published box scores. While baseball cards themselves had been around for years, including statistics was a relative novelty that fascinated many collectors. Those who played with baseball cards could study the numbers and use them as the basis for comparing players, trading cards with friends, or playing imaginary baseball games. It also had some pedagogical benefit by encouraging youngsters to take an interest in the underlying mathematics
Mathematics is an area of knowledge that includes the topics of numbers, formulas and related structures, shapes and the spaces in which they are contained, and quantities and their changes. These topics are represented in modern mathematics ...
.
The cards originally had one line for statistics from the most recent year (i.e. the 1951 season for cards in the 1952 set) and another with the player's lifetime totals. Bowman promptly imitated this by putting statistics on its own cards where it had previously only had biographical information. For the first time in 1957, Topps put full year-by-year statistics for the player's entire career on the back of the card. Over the next few years, Topps alternated between this format and merely showing the past season plus career totals. The practice of showing complete career statistics became permanent in 1963, except for one year, 1971, when Topps sacrificed the full statistics in order to put a player photo on the back of the card as well.
Artwork and photography
Although the 1971 set was an aborted experiment in terms of putting photos on card backs (they would not return until 1992), that year was also a landmark in terms of baseball card photography, as Topps for the first time included cards showing color photographs from actual games. The cards themselves had been in color from the beginning, though for the first few years this was done by using artist's portraits of players rather than actual photographs and until 1971, Topps used mostly portrait or posed shots. The 1971 set is also known for its jet black borders, which because they chip so easily, makes it much more difficult to find top grade cards for 1971. The black borders would return for Topps's 1985 football set and 2007 baseball set.
After starting out with simple portraits, in 1954 Topps put two pictures on the front of the card – a hand-tinted 'color' close-up photo of the player's head, and the other a black-and-white full-length pose. The same basic format was used in 1955, this time with the full-length photo also hand-tinted. For 1956, the close-up tinted photo was placed against a tinted full-background 'game-action' photo of the player. The close-up head shots of some individual players were reused each year.
From 1957 on, virtually all cards were posed photographs, either as a head shot or together with a typical piece of equipment like a bat
Bats are mammals of the order Chiroptera.''cheir'', "hand" and πτερόν''pteron'', "wing". With their forelimbs adapted as wings, they are the only mammals capable of true and sustained flight. Bats are more agile in flight than most bi ...
or glove
A glove is a garment covering the hand. Gloves usually have separate sheaths or openings for each finger and the thumb.
If there is an opening but no (or a short) covering sheath for each finger they are called fingerless gloves. Fingerless glov ...
. If using such a prop, the player might pose in a position as if he were in the act of batting Batting may refer to:
*Batting (baseball), the act of attempting to hit a ball thrown by the pitcher with a baseball bat, in order to score runs
*Batting (cricket), the act of defending one's wicket with the cricket bat while attempting to score ru ...
, pitching, or fielding. Photographs did not appear in sharp focus and natural color until 1962. However, that year also saw problems with the print quality in the second series, which lacked the right proportion of ink
Ink is a gel, sol, or solution that contains at least one colorant, such as a dye or pigment, and is used to color a surface to produce an image, text, or design. Ink is used for drawing or writing with a pen, brush, reed pen, or quill. Thi ...
and thus gave the photographs a distinctly greenish tint. The affected series of cards was then reprinted, and several players were actually shown in different poses in the reprinting. Although Topps had produced error cards and variations before, this was its largest single production glitch.
In the absence of full-color action photography, Topps still occasionally used artwork to depict action on a handful of cards. Starting in 1960 a few cards showed true game action, but the photographs were either in black-and-white
Black-and-white (B&W or B/W) images combine black and white in a continuous spectrum, producing a range of shades of grey.
Media
The history of various visual media began with black and white, and as technology improved, altered to color. ...
or hand-tinted color; these cards were primarily highlights from the World Series
The World Series is the annual championship series of Major League Baseball (MLB) in the United States and Canada, contested since 1903 between the champion teams of the American League (AL) and the National League (NL). The winner of the World ...
. In addition to basic cards of individual players, Topps sets commonly include cards for special themes, the 1974 tribute to Hank Aaron
Henry Louis Aaron (February 5, 1934 – January 22, 2021), nicknamed "Hammer" or "Hammerin' Hank", was an American professional baseball right fielder who played 23 seasons in Major League Baseball (MLB), from 1954 through 1976. One of the gre ...
as he was about to break Babe Ruth
George Herman "Babe" Ruth Jr. (February 6, 1895 – August 16, 1948) was an American professional baseball player whose career in Major League Baseball (MLB) spanned 22 seasons, from 1914 through 1935. Nicknamed "the Bambino" and "the Su ...
's career home run record being one example. The 1972 set finally included color photographs, which were used for special "In Action" cards of selected star players. Thereafter, Topps began simply mixing game photography with posed shots in its sets.
Baseball artist Dick Perez
Dick Perez (born 1940) is an American artist known for his baseball paintings for the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum and the Philadelphia Phillies. He is also known for his paintings for various baseball card series. Perez's 2010 book ...
was commissioned to paint art cards for Topps beginning in 2006. His art card series include Turkey Red and Allen & Ginter
Allen & Ginter was a Richmond, Virginia, tobacco manufacturing company formed by John F. Allen and Lewis Ginter around 1880. The firm created and marketed the first cigarette cards for collecting and trading in the United States. Some of the nota ...
.
When used for the cards of individual players, some of the early action photography had awkward results. The photos were sometimes out of focus or included several players, making it difficult to pick out the player who was supposed to be featured on the card. In a few cases, a misidentification meant that the player didn't even appear in the picture. These problems diminished as Topps's selection of photographs gradually improved.
Before statistics, biographical information, and commentary became the dominant element on the backs of cards, Topps also featured artwork there. This primarily involved using various types of cartoons drawn by its stable of artists. These appeared on card backs as late as 1982, but gradually declined in the prominence of their placement and the proportion of cards on which they appeared. In 1993, Topps finally managed again to incorporate a player photo on the back as well as the front of the card, after some competitors had been doing so for a number of years.
Coping with updated developments
The pictures and information on baseball cards sold during one season came primarily from earlier seasons, so Topps used various tactics to give its cards a greater sense of staying current with the times. Before coming up with the idea of a "Traded" set, the company still tried to produce cards of players with their new team if they changed teams in the offseason. This was sometimes accomplished by showing the player without any team cap, or by airbrush
An airbrush is a small, air-operated tool that atomizes and sprays various media, most often paint but also ink and dye, and foundation. Spray painting developed from the airbrush and is considered to employ a type of airbrush.
History
U ...
ing out elements of the former team's logo on his uniform. Cards for rookies could also be prepared by airbrushing over their minor-league uniforms in photos.
In one case, Topps even got too far in front of events, as in 1974 it showed a number of players as being with the "Washington Nat'l Lea." franchise, due to expectations that the San Diego Padres
The San Diego Padres are an American professional baseball team based in San Diego. The Padres compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (NL) West division. Founded in 1969, the club has won two NL penna ...
would relocate to the vacant Washington, D.C., market. The team designation was the only change, as no new nickname for the franchise had been selected. When the move failed to materialize, Topps had to replace these with cards showing the players still as Padres.
On rare occasions, Topps has issued special cards for players who had either died or had been injured. The 1959 set had card 550 as "Symbol Of Courage – Roy Campanella
Roy Campanella (November 19, 1921 – June 26, 1993), nicknamed "Campy", was an American baseball player, primarily as a catcher. The Philadelphia native played in the Negro leagues and Mexican League for nine years before entering the minor lea ...
", with a color photo of the paralyzed former Dodger in his wheelchair and a black-and-white
Black-and-white (B&W or B/W) images combine black and white in a continuous spectrum, producing a range of shades of grey.
Media
The history of various visual media began with black and white, and as technology improved, altered to color. ...
photo of him in uniform inserted to the upper left. The 1964 set issued cards for two recently deceased players: Ken Hubbs
Kenneth Douglass Hubbs (December 23, 1941 – February 13, 1964) was an American professional baseball player. He played in Major League Baseball as a second baseman for the Chicago Cubs from to . Hubbs died at age 22 when the private plane he w ...
of the Cubs with a different "In Memoriam" front design compared to standard cards, and Colts pitcher Jim Umbricht
James Umbricht (September 17, 1930 – April 8, 1964) was an American professional baseball player. A right-handed relief pitcher, he played Major League Baseball (MLB) between 1959 and 1963 for the Pittsburgh Pirates and Houston Colt .45s.
Um ...
's regular card with a special note on the back about his April 1964 death from cancer. In October 2006, Topps was prepping for its annual updated/traded card release, which featured Cory Lidle
Cory Fulton Lidle (March 22, 1972 – October 11, 2006) was an American professional baseball player. A right-handed pitcher, Lidle played in Major League Baseball with the New York Mets, Tampa Bay Devil Rays, Oakland Athletics, Toronto Blue Ja ...
in a Yankees uniform. After Lidle's tragic death, the cards were pulled and subsequently released with "In Memoriam" on its front.
American Football cards
In addition to baseball, Topps also produced cards for American football
American football (referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada), also known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team with ...
in 1951, which are known as the ''Magic'' set. For football cards Bowman dominated the field, and Topps did not try again until 1955, when it released an ''All-American'' set with a mix of active players and retired stars. After buying out Bowman, Topps took over the market the following year.
Since then, Topps sold football cards every season until 2016. However, the emergence of the American Football League
The American Football League (AFL) was a major professional American football league that operated for ten seasons from 1960 until 1970, when it merged with the older National Football League (NFL), and became the American Football Conference. ...
(AFL) in 1960 to compete with the established 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 ...
also allowed Topps's competitors, beginning with Fleer, to make inroads. Fleer produced a set for the AFL in 1960, sets for both leagues for a year, and then began focusing on the AFL again. Philadelphia Gum
The Philadelphia Chewing Gum Corporation was a Pennsylvania corporation formed on August 12, 1947, to manufacture candy, chewing gum, and specialty confectionery products. The company was also notable for its American Football Cards when in 196 ...
secured the NFL rights for 1964, forcing Topps to go for the AFL and leaving Fleer with no product in either baseball or football.
Although more competitive for a time, the football card market was never as lucrative as the market for baseball cards, so the other companies did not fight as hard over it. After the AFL–NFL Merger
The AFL–NFL merger was the merger of the two major professional American football leagues in the United States at the time: the National Football League (NFL) and the American Football League (AFL). It paved the way for the combined league, w ...
was agreed to, Topps became the only major football card manufacturer beginning in 1968. In spite of the lack of competition, or perhaps to preempt it, Topps also created two sets of cards for the short-lived United States Football League
The United States Football League (USFL) was a professional American football league that played for three seasons, 1983 through 1985. The league played a spring/summer schedule in each of its active seasons. The 1986 season was scheduled to be ...
in the 1980s. Many NFL legends had their first ever cards produced in the USFL sets. These players include Steve Young
Jon Steven Young (born October 11, 1961) is an American former professional football quarterback who played in the National Football League (NFL) for 15 seasons, primarily with the San Francisco 49ers. He also played for the Tampa Bay Buccane ...
, Jim Kelly
James Edward Kelly (born February 14, 1960) is a former American football quarterback who played in the National Football League (NFL) for 11 seasons with the Buffalo Bills. He also spent two seasons with the Houston Gamblers of the United State ...
, and Reggie White
Reginald Howard White (December 19, 1961 – December 26, 2004) was an American professional football player who played defensive end in the National Football League (NFL) for 15 seasons during the 1980s and 1990s. He played college football for ...
. This resulted in a controversy when these players debuted in the NFL. Many wondered if the USFL cards should be considered rookie cards because the league did not exist anymore. The situation continued until growth in the sports card
A trading card (or collectible card) is a small card, usually made out of paperboard or thick paper, which usually contains an image of a certain person, place or thing (fictional or real) and a short description of the picture, along with other ...
market generally prompted two new companies, Pro Set and Score, to start making football cards in 1989.
Throughout the 1970s until 1982, Topps did not have the rights to reproduce the actual team logos on the helmets and uniforms of the players; curiously, these could be found on the Fleer sets of the same era, but Fleer could not name specific player names (likely an issue of Topps holding the National Football League Players Association
The National Football League Players Association, or NFLPA, is a labor union representing National Football League (NFL) players. The NFLPA, which has headquarters in Washington, D.C., is led by president J. C. Tretter and executive director De ...
license and Fleer holding the license from the league). As a result, helmet logos for these teams were airbrushed out on a routine basis.
After the 2015 football season, Panini was awarded an exclusive license by the NFL for producing football cards. 2016 was the first year Topps did not produce football cards since 1955.
Trading cards for other sports
Topps also makes cards for other major North American professional sports. Its next venture was into ice hockey
Ice hockey (or simply hockey) is a team sport played on ice skates, usually on an ice skating rink with lines and markings specific to the sport. It belongs to a family of sports called hockey. In ice hockey, two opposing teams use ice hock ...
, with a 1954 set featuring players from the four National Hockey League
The National Hockey League (NHL; french: Ligue nationale de hockey—LNH, ) is a professional ice hockey league in North America comprising 32 teams—25 in the United States and 7 in Canada. It is considered to be the top ranked professional ...
franchises located in the U.S. at the time: the Boston Bruins
The Boston Bruins are a professional ice hockey team based in Boston. The Bruins compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Atlantic Division in the Eastern Conference. The team has been in existence since 1924, making t ...
, Chicago Blackhawks
The Chicago Blackhawks (spelled Black Hawks until 1986, and known colloquially as the Hawks) are a professional ice hockey team based in Chicago. The Blackhawks compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Central Division i ...
, Detroit Red Wings
The Detroit Red Wings (colloquially referred to as the Wings) are a professional ice hockey team based in Detroit. The Red Wings compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Atlantic Division (NHL), Atlantic Division in the East ...
, and New York Rangers
The New York Rangers are a professional ice hockey team based in the New York City borough of Manhattan. They compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Metropolitan Division in the Eastern Conference. The team plays its home ...
.
In 1958, the O-Pee-Chee
The O-Pee-Chee Company, Ltd. was a Canadian confectionery company founded in 1911 that produced candy until the mid-1990s. Based in London, Ontario, the company produced its first trading card sets in the 1930s, releasing several collections of ...
Company of London, Ontario, Canada, entered into an agreement with Topps to produce NHL cards (the 1957–58 series) and Canadian football cards (the 1958 series). O-Pee-Chee then started printing its own hockey and football cards in 1961. Similarly, the Topps Company struck agreements with Amalgamated and British Confectionery in the United Kingdom and Scanlen's in Australia.
In 1967, with the major expansion of six new NHL teams to the United States, the Topps Company produced a new hockey card set that paralleled the 1966–67 O-Pee-Chee hockey design (the basic television design was in fact first used for 1966 Topps American football series). Starting in 1968–69, the Topps Company started printing an annual Topps hockey set that was similar to the annual O-Pee-Chee hockey set. The Topps and O-Pee-Chee hockey sets shared a similar design from 1968–69 to 1981–82 and from 1984–85 to 1991–92.
Topps first sold cards for basketball in 1957, but stopped after one season. The company started producing basketball cards again in 1969 and continued until 1982, but then abandoned the market for another decade, missing out on printing the prized rookie cards of Michael Jordan
Michael Jeffrey Jordan (born February 17, 1963), also known by his initials MJ, is an American businessman and former professional basketball player. His biography on the official NBA website states: "By acclamation, Michael Jordan is the g ...
and other mid- and late-1980s National Basketball Association
The National Basketball Association (NBA) is a professional basketball league in North America. The league is composed of 30 teams (29 in the United States and 1 in Canada) and is one of the major professional sports leagues in the United S ...
stars. Topps finally returned to basketball cards in 1992, several years after its competitors. This would be perfect timing, because 1992 was the rookie year of Shaquille O'Neal
Shaquille Rashaun O'Neal ( ; born March 6, 1972), known commonly as "Shaq" ( ), is an American former professional basketball player who is a sports analyst on the television program ''Inside the NBA''. O'Neal is regarded as one of the greates ...
.
In the United Kingdom, where football stickers have been popular over roughly the same period of time as trading cards, Topps acquired the old Amalgamated and British Confectionery firm in 1974, bringing its production methods and card style to Britain. Topps also makes cards for the Scottish Professional Football League. Under its Merlin brand, it has the licence to produce stickers for the Premier League
The Premier League (legal name: The Football Association Premier League Limited) is the highest level of the men's English football league system. Contested by 20 clubs, it operates on a system of promotion and relegation with the English Foo ...
and the national team. Its main competition is the Italian firm Panini. Until 2019, Topps made 'Topps Premier League
The Topps Company, Inc. is an American company that manufactures chewing gum, candy, and collectibles. Formerly based in New York City, Topps is best known as a leading producer of American football, baseball, basketball, ice hockey, soccer, ...
' stickers and the Match Attax trading card game, and since 2015 it has produced stickers and trading cards for the UEFA Champions League
The UEFA Champions League (abbreviated as UCL, or sometimes, UEFA CL) is an annual club football competition organised by the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) and contested by top-division European clubs, deciding the competit ...
.
In 2008, Topps gained the rights to production of WWE
World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc., d/b/a as WWE, is an American professional wrestling promotion. A global integrated media and entertainment company, WWE has also branched out into other fields, including film, American football, and vario ...
trading cards. The first variation of cards were aptly titled Slam Attax, a play on words of the previously popular football trading card game Match Attax (also made by Topps). The first set was released in late 2008 in the U.K., and it was then later released in the United States in mid-2009. This later proved to be a pattern for subsequent Slam Attax sets and variations, with the U.K. getting an earlier release than the U.S.. After failing to take off, Topps ceased production of Slam Attax cards in the U.S. after only two sets, whilst continuing the line in the U.K. and in Europe where in contrast the brand had become more popular. It remains today one of the longest running Topps brands in the U.K..
In 2008, Topps and Zuffa, LLC
Zuffa, LLC () is an American sports promotion company specializing in mixed martial arts. It was founded in January 2001 in Las Vegas, Nevada, by Station Casinos executives Frank Fertitta III and Lorenzo Fertitta to be the parent entity of the ...
signed an exclusive agreement to produce mixed martial arts
Mixed martial arts (MMA), sometimes referred to as cage fighting, no holds barred (NHB), and ultimate fighting, and originally referred to as Vale Tudo is a full-contact combat sport based on striking, grappling and ground fighting, inc ...
trading cards. Among the included cards were current and former athletes from the UFC
The Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) is an American mixed martial arts (MMA) promotion company based in Las Vegas, Nevada. It is owned and operated by Zuffa, a wholly owned subsidiary of Endeavor Group Holdings. It is the largest MMA ...
.
Non-sports products
Originally, Topps was purely a gum company, and its first product was simply called "Topps gum". Other gum and candy products followed. In imitation of Bowman and other competitors, Topps eventually began producing humor products unrelated to sports. This included stickers, posters (Wanted Posters, Travel Posters), media tie-ins (''Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In
''Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In'' (often simply referred to as ''Laugh-In'') is an American sketch comedy television program that ran for 140 episodes from January 22, 1968, to March 12, 1973, on the NBC television network, hosted by comedians Da ...
''), book covers (Batty Bookcovers) and toys (Flying Things), plus offbeat packaging (Garbage Candy). More recently, the company published comic books and games.
Garbage Pail Kids GPK NATION Challenge Coins
The 2020 Topps Licensee of the Year GPK NATION created its own hobby with their Topps Licensed Challenge Coins. Topps licensed GPK to Louis Uncle Louie Gregory and Adam F. Goldberg
Adam Frederick Goldberg (born April 2, 1976) is an American television and film producer, and writer. Goldberg is best known as the creator and showrunner of '' The Goldbergs'', a television sitcom based on his childhood in which he is portrayed ...
in 2020 and they have taken the hobby worldwide.
Candy and confectionery items
The longest-lived Topps product line remains Bazooka bubble gum, small pieces of gum in patriotic red, white, and blue packaging. Bazooka was introduced in 1947 as a bar of gum that sold for five cents. Unlike the gum sold with baseball cards, it was of better quality and capable of selling on its own merit. In 1953, Topps began selling smaller penny pieces with the ''Bazooka Joe
Bazooka Joe is a comic strip character featured on small comics included in individually wrapped pieces of Bazooka bubble gum. He wears a black eyepatch, lending him a distinctive appearance. He is one of the more recognizable American advertisin ...
'' comic strip on the wrapper as an added attraction.
Even though baseball cards became the company's primary focus during this period, Topps still developed a variety of candy items. For quite a few years, the company stuck within familiar confines, and virtually all of these products involved gum in some way. Sales declined significantly in the 1970s, however, when this relatively hard gum was challenged by Bubble Yum
Bubble Yum is a brand of bubble gum marketed by The Hershey Company. Introduced in 1975 by Life Savers, the bubble gum was the first soft bubble gum created. It was created by a homemaker in Fisk, Missouri, who named it "rubber bubblegum". She gav ...
, a new, softer form of bubble gum
Bubble gum or bubblegum is a type of chewing gum, designed to be inflated out of the mouth as a bubble.
Bubble gum flavor
While there is a bubble gum "flavor" – which various artificial flavorings including esters are mixed to obtain – it ...
from Life Savers
Life Savers (stylized as LifeSavers) is an American brand of ring-shaped hard and soft candy. Its range of mints and fruit-flavored candies is known for its distinctive packaging, coming in paper-wrapped aluminum foil rolls.
Candy manufacturer C ...
.
In recent years, Topps has added more candy items without gum. One particular focus has been lollipop
A lollipop is a type of sugar candy usually consisting of hard candy mounted on a stick and intended for sucking or licking. Different informal terms are used in different places, including lolly, sucker, sticky-pop, etc. Lollipops are availa ...
s, such as Ring Pop
Ring Pop is a brand of fruit flavored lollipops manufactured by the Bazooka Companies. They are in the form of a wearable plastic ring with a large hard candy "jewel" and come in an assortment of flavors and colors. In 2022, it is currently owned ...
s. However, Topps has complained that increasing public attention to childhood nutrition undercuts its candy sales. Under pressure by shareholders, the company considered selling off its confectionery business in 2005, but was unable to find a buyer to meet its price and decided to cut management expenses instead.
Other brands include Push Pop, Baby Bottle Pop, and Juicy Drop Pop
Juicy Drop is a brand of flavoured gel that is meant to be combined with gummies, taffies, and gums to enhance the flavour.
Overview
Juicy Drop line of candies consist of six candy products: Juicy Drop Pop, Juicy Drop Gum, Juicy Drop Gummies, Ju ...
.
Discontinued products include the Vertigo lollipop, that consisted of a creamy lollipop with a chocolate half and the Wazoo bar Wazoo (often known as the Wazoo bar) was a Chocolate bar, candy bar launched by Topps in 2009.
The bar was taffy (candy), taffy with a creamy, tangy coating covered in sprinkles. The candy bar came in two flavors: "Blue Razz" and "Wild Berriez". It ...
.
Non-sports trading cards
As its sports products relied more on photography, Topps redirected its artistic efforts toward non-sports trading card
Non-sport trading cards are a particular kind of collectible card designated as such because trading cards have historically prominently featured athletes from the world of sports as subjects. Non-sports cards are trading cards whose subjects ca ...
s, on themes inspired by popular culture
Popular culture (also called mass culture or pop culture) is generally recognized by members of a society as a set of practices, beliefs, artistic output (also known as, popular art or mass art) and objects that are dominant or prevalent in a ...
. For example, the Space Race
The Space Race was a 20th-century competition between two Cold War rivals, the United States and the Soviet Union, to achieve superior spaceflight capability. It had its origins in the ballistic missile-based nuclear arms race between the tw ...
prompted a set of ''Space Cards'' in 1958. Topps has continued to create collectible cards and stickers on a variety of subjects, often targeting the same adolescent male audience as its baseball cards. In particular, these have covered movies, television series, and other cultural phenomena ranging from the Beatles
The Beatles were an English Rock music, rock band, formed in Liverpool in 1960, that comprised John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr. They are regarded as the Cultural impact of the Beatles, most influential band of al ...
to the life story of John F. Kennedy
John Fitzgerald Kennedy (May 29, 1917 – November 22, 1963), often referred to by his initials JFK and the nickname Jack, was an American politician who served as the 35th president of the United States from 1961 until his assassination ...
. The many ''Star Wars Trading Cards, Star Wars'' card series have done well, with a few exceptions. Future screenwriter Gary Gerani ("Pumpkinhead') joined the company in 1972 and became the editor/writer of almost all movie and television tie-in products, most notably the numerous ''Star Wars'' sets, while also creating and helming original card properties such as 1988's ''Dinosaurs Attack!''.
Many Topps artists came from the world of comics and continued to work in that field as well. The shift from sports to other topics better suited the creative instincts of the artists and coincided with turmoil in the comic book industry over regulation by the Comics Code Authority. Beginning at Topps when he was a teenager, Art Spiegelman was the company's main staff cartoonist for more than 20 years. Other staffers in Topps's Product Development Department at various times included Larry Riley, Mark Newgarden, Bhob Stewart and Rick Varesi. Topps's creative directors of Product Development, Woody Gelman and Len Brown, gave freelance assignments to leading comic book illustrators, such as Jack Davis (cartoonist), Jack Davis, Wally Wood and Bob Powell (comics), Bob Powell. Spiegelman, Gelman and Brown also hired freelance artists from the underground comix movement, including Bill Griffith and Kim Deitch and Robert Crumb. Jay Lynch did extensive cartooning for Topps over several decades.
Drawing on their previous work, these artists were adept at things like mixing humor and horror fiction, horror, as with the Funny Monsters cards in 1959. The 1962 ''Mars Attacks'' cards, sketched by Wood and Powell and painted by Norman Saunders, later inspired a Tim Burton movie. A tie-in with the ''Mars Attacks'' film led to a 1994 card series, a new 100-card ''Archives'' set reprinting the 55 original cards, plus 45 new cards from several different artists, including Norm Saunders' daughter, Zina Saunders.
Among Topps's most notable achievements in the area of satire and parody have been ''Wacky Packages
''Wacky Packages'' are a series of humorous trading cards featuring parodies of consumer products. The cards were produced by Topps beginning in 1967, first in die-cut, then in peel-and-stick sticker format. There were 16 series produced betwe ...
'', a takeoff on various household consumer products, and ''Garbage Pail Kids
''Garbage Pail Kids'' is a series of sticker trading cards produced by the Topps Company, originally released in 1985 and designed to parody the ''Cabbage Patch Kids'' dolls, which were popular at the time.
Each sticker card features a Garbage ...
'', a parody of the Cabbage Patch Kids dolls. Another popular series was the ''Civil War News'' set, also with Norman Saunders' artwork.
Earlier, particularly in the early and mid-60s, Topps thrived with several successful series of parody and satire cards for a variety of occasions, usually featuring artists who also worked at ''Mad (magazine), Mad'' magazine. There were several insult-valentine card series, plus a series of insult epigram cards called Wacky Plaques, several series of well-known-product advertising parody cards, a set of cards featuring the 'mad car-driver cartoons' of artist Ed Roth, Big Daddy Roth, and a card-sticker series of fanciful bizarre 'rejected aliens' from other planets, among other semi-subversive outrageous over-the-top concepts designed for the semi-rebellious adolescent boomer market.
Although baseball cards have been Topps's most consistently profitable item, certain fads have occasionally produced spikes in popularity for non-sports items. For a period beginning in 1973, the ''Wacky Packages'' stickers managed to outsell Topps baseball cards, becoming the first product to do so since the company's early days as purely a gum and candy maker. ''Pokémon'' cards would accomplish the same feat for a few years starting in 1999. In the absence of new fads to capitalize on, Topps has come under pressure from stock analysts, since its sports card business is more stable and has less growth potential.
In 2015 Topps started to expand its non-sports category by adding more TV shows, as well as sci-fi with its brand-new ''Star Wars
''Star Wars'' is an American epic film, epic space opera multimedia franchise created by George Lucas, which began with the Star Wars (film), eponymous 1977 film and quickly became a worldwide popular culture, pop-culture Cultural impact of S ...
'' line (expanding into its own Topps virtual card app, similar to Topps BUNT), as well as ''Doctor Who'', with regular autographs as well as vintage cut autographs, screen-worn relics, and more.
Disney Channel
Topps worked together with the Disney Channel to create trading cards of ''High School Musical'', ''High School Musical 2'', ''High School Musical 3'', and ''Hannah Montana''.
Comic books
Drawing on its established connections with artists, in 1993 Topps created a division of the company to publish comic books. Known as Topps Comics, its early efforts included several concepts from retired industry legend Jack Kirby, known collectively as the "Kirbyverse". Topps Comics particularly specialized in licensed titles with tie-ins to movies or television series, though it also published a few original series. Its longest-running and best-selling title was ''The X-Files (comics), The X-Files'', based on the Fox Broadcasting, Fox TV show.
These comic books featured former Marvel Comics editor Jim Salicrup as its editor-in-chief. Apart of ''The X-Files'', some of the more famous titles included ''Lone Ranger and Tonto'' by Timothy Truman, ''Xena: Warrior Princess (comics), Xena: Warrior Princess'', ''Mars Attacks'', and ''Zorro'', which introduced the famous comics character Lady Rawhide. With sales stagnating, the company decided to pull out of the comics business in 1998.
Games
The Topps Pokémon cards were purely for entertainment, pleasure and collecting, but a new niche of collectible card games was also developing during this period (a Pokémon trading card game was produced simultaneously by Wizards of the Coast). Topps made its first foray into the world of games in July 2003 by acquiring the game company WizKids for $29.4 million in cash, thus acquiring ownership of the rights to the well-known gaming universes of ''BattleTech'' and ''Shadowrun''. By inventing yet another niche, the constructible strategy game ''Pirates of the Spanish Main'', this unit managed to reach profitability. Topps shut down Wizkids operation in November 2008 due to the economic downturn. The brand was acquired by National Entertainment Collectibles Association, NECA in September 2009.
Awards
Major League Baseball
*Topps All-Star Rookie Teams, Topps All-Star Rookie Team
Minor League Baseball
* Topps Minor League Player of the Year Award – also known as the J. G. Taylor Spink Award
* George M. Trautman Awards – Also in conjunction with Minor League Baseball, Topps presents the ''George Trautman, George M. Trautman Awards'' to the Topps Player of the Year in each of sixteen domestic minor leagues.
* Topps Short Season-A/Rookie All-Star Team
See also
*Topps baseball card products
*Allen & Ginter
Allen & Ginter was a Richmond, Virginia, tobacco manufacturing company formed by John F. Allen and Lewis Ginter around 1880. The firm created and marketed the first cigarette cards for collecting and trading in the United States. Some of the nota ...
* Bowman
*Donruss
Donruss was a US-based trading cards manufacturing company founded in 1954 and acquired by the Panini Group in 2009. The company started in the 1950s, producing confectionery, evolved into Donruss and started producing trading cards. During th ...
*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-Blu ...
*Razor Entertainment
*Upper Deck Company
Notes
References
Sources
* ''Bowman Gum, Inc. v. Topps Chewing Gum, Inc.'', 103 F.Supp. 944 (E.D.N.Y. 1952).
* Boyd, Brendan C. & Fred C. Harris (1973). ''The Great American Baseball Card Flipping, Trading and Bubble Gum Book''. Boston: Little, Brown and Company. .
* Caple, Jim.
A card fan's dream come true
. ''ESPN.com Page 2'', July 25, 2006.
* ''Fleer Corp. v. Topps Chewing Gum, Inc.'', 501 F.Supp. 485 (E.D. Pa. 1980).
* ''Fleer Corp. v. Topps Chewing Gum, Inc.'', 658 F.2d 139 (3d Cir. 1981).
''Haelan Laboratories, Inc. v. Topps Chewing Gum, Inc.''
202 F.2d 866 (2d Cir. 1953).
* ''Haelan Laboratories, Inc. v. Topps Chewing Gum Co.'', 112 F.Supp. 904 (E.D.N.Y. 1953).
* Schwartz, Ben. "Culture Jamming for the Swingset Set". ''Chicago Reader'', June 25, 2004.
* Alan Schwarz, Schwarz, Alan (2004). ''The Numbers Game: Baseball's Lifelong Fascination with Statistics''. New York: St. Martin's Press. .
* Slocum, Frank & Red Foley (1990). ''Topps Baseball Cards: The complete picture collection, a 40 year history''. New York: Warner Books.
* Smith, Aaron.
Mickey Mantle or Martha?
''CNN/Money'', March 24, 2005.
* Thompson, Wright.
Investors gear up for takeover
. ''ESPN.com Page 2'', July 27, 2006.
External links
*
from ''USA Today''
Sy Berger: Father of the modern baseball card
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