Topps facts for kids
Logo used since 1981
|
|
| Private | |
| Industry | Collectibles, confectionery |
| Founded | Brooklyn, New York, U.S. (1938) |
| Headquarters |
One Whitehall Street
,
New York, New York U.S.
|
|
Key people
|
|
| Products | Trading cards, chewing gum, candy |
| Brands | Allen & Ginter Bowman |
| Revenue | $91.6 Million (fiscal 2006) |
| $101 Million (fiscal 2017) | |
| Owner | Fanatics |
|
Number of employees
|
422 |
The Topps Company, Inc. is an American company famous for making trading cards and other cool collectibles. Topps is super well-known for its baseball cards, plus other sports and non-sports cards. They also make cards under brand names like Allen & Ginter and Bowman.
For a long time, Topps was the only company allowed to make baseball cards for Major League Baseball. But in 2022, they lost that special permission to Fanatics, Inc.. Soon after, Fanatics actually bought Topps!
Contents
Topps Company History
How Topps Started
Topps began in 1938, but its story goes back even further to a company called American Leaf Tobacco. This company was started in 1890 by the Saloman family. They imported tobacco to the United States. Later, in 1908, Morris Chigorinsky Shorin took over the company.
American Leaf Tobacco faced tough times during World War I and the Great Depression. So, Shorin's sons – Abram, Ira, Philip, and Joseph – decided to try something new. They wanted to use their existing ways of distributing products. They relaunched the company as Topps. The name was chosen to show they would be "tops" (the best) in their field. They decided to make chewing gum.
Back then, chewing gum was still pretty new and sold in single pieces. Topps's first big hit was Bazooka bubble gum. It came with a small comic strip on the wrapper. In 1950, Topps tried putting trading cards with their gum to sell more. These first cards featured Western star Hopalong Cassidy (William Boyd). He was a huge TV star at the time! When Topps later added baseball cards, they quickly became the most important product.
The Birth of Modern Baseball Cards
Sy Berger is often called the "father of the modern baseball card." In 1951, Sy, who was 28 and a World War II veteran, designed the 1952 Topps baseball card set. He worked with Woody Gelman on a kitchen table in Brooklyn. The cards showed a player's name, photo, autograph, team name, and logo on the front. On the back, they had the player's height, weight, stats, and a short story. This basic design is still used today! Sy worked for Topps for 50 years. He was known for signing up baseball players and paying them with cool stuff like refrigerators.
Sy was also good at making deals. In 1964, he went to London to get the rights for Topps to make Beatles trading cards. He even spoke Yiddish to Brian Epstein, the Beatles' manager, to seal the deal!
In 1952, Topps had too many baseball cards left over. Sy Berger hired a boat to dump them into the Atlantic Ocean off the New Jersey shore. These cards included Mickey Mantle's first Topps card. Today, this card is the most valuable modern baseball card ever. No one knew back then how much they would be worth! On August 28, 2022, a 1952 Mickey Mantle card sold for an amazing $12.6 million.
Topps Becomes a Public Company
Topps started as Topps Chewing Gum, Inc., owned by the four Shorin brothers. It became a proper company in New York in 1947. At first, everything was done in Brooklyn. But in 1965, they moved production to a plant in Pennsylvania. The main offices stayed in New York City. In 1994, the headquarters moved to One Whitehall Street in Manhattan.
For many years, Topps was a private company. But in 1972, they started selling shares to the public. This meant anyone could buy a piece of the company. In 1984, a company called Forstmann Little & Company bought Topps, making it private again. But then, in 1987, Topps became a public company once more, changing its name to The Topps Company, Inc. The Shorin family continued to manage the company through all these changes.
In 2007, Michael Eisner's The Tornante Company and Madison Dearborn Partners bought Topps. Under Eisner, Topps started to get into movies and media. They even planned a Bazooka Joe movie! They also looked into making projects based on other Topps ideas like Garbage Pail Kids and Wacky Packages.
Topps Goes Digital
In 2012, Topps started making digital sports cards. Their first app was Topps Bunt for baseball cards in 2013. It was a big hit! They then made other sports apps like Kick for soccer (2014), Huddle for football (2016), and Skate for hockey (2017).
Topps also made digital non-sports cards. In 2015, they launched the Star Wars: Card Trader app. In 2016, they released a Walking Dead card app. Later, they added a Marvel card app in 2019 and a Disney card app that same year.
In 2020, Topps announced they would make some cards tradable using blockchain technology. As of December 2020, they had Garbage Pail Kids cards available this way.
In 2021, Topps planned to become a public company again through a special merger. The deal valued Topps at $1.3 billion. However, the deal fell through. In August 2021, it was reported that Fanatics would get the future rights to make Major League Baseball cards. In January 2022, Fanatics officially bought Topps for US$500 million.
Topps Europe Ltd.
Buying Merlin Publishing
Topps has a European branch based in Milton Keynes, UK. From this office, they launch products all over Europe, including Spain, France, Germany, and Italy. They also coordinate products for other countries like Australia and South Africa.
In 1994, a company called Merlin got the special permission to make the only official Premier League sticker and album collection in the UK. These stickers were so popular that Merlin was surprised by how many they sold!
In 1995, The Topps Company Inc. bought Merlin Publishing. Merlin's official name changed to Topps Europe Limited. But their products still used the Merlin brand name until 2008 because people recognized it easily.
Topps Europe Limited still makes many different sports and entertainment collectibles in Europe. Their products include stickers, albums, cards, magazines, and temporary tattoos.
Popular Products in Europe
Topps Europe Ltd. has launched many successful products across Europe. Some of their most popular ones include WWE, Pokémon, Doctor Who, High School Musical, and SpongeBob.
Topps Merlin branded Premier League sticker albums have been a hit since 1994. In 2007, Topps also got the rights to make Premier League trading cards. Their game, Match Attax, became the best-selling boys' collectible in the UK for three years in a row! It's also the biggest-selling sports collectible in the world. About 1.5 million kids in the UK alone collect it.
In 2008, Topps got the exclusive rights for German football league (DFL Deutsche Fussball Liga GmbH) trading cards and stickers. Bundesliga Match Attax launched in 2009 and is now one of the biggest-selling collections in Germany.
In January 2023, Topps released both physical and digital trading cards for the 24 Hours of Le Mans Motorsport event. These cards feature artwork from original race posters dating back to 1923.
Topps Baseball Cards: A Look Back
Starting in Baseball Cards
In 1951, Topps made its first baseball cards in two sets: Red Backs and Blue Backs. Each set had 52 cards, like a deck of playing cards. You could even use them to play a game that copied a baseball game! The cards had rounded corners and were blank on one side, colored red or blue. The other side showed a player's picture and a baseball action like "fly out" or "single."
Topps changed things in 1952. They made a much bigger set of 407 baseball cards and put them with their bubble gum. They also made the cards bigger (2-5/8 inches by 3-3/4 inches) with square corners. Now, the cards had a color picture on one side and stats and info on the other. This set was a huge moment for baseball cards. Topps considers it their first real baseball card set. Many of the pictures were painted by artist Gerry Dvorak. In 1957, Topps made their cards a bit smaller (2-1/2 inches by 3-1/2 inches). This became the standard size for most sports cards in the U.S. Around this time, Topps started using color photos.
Cards were released in several groups throughout the baseball season. The last group of cards each year didn't sell as well because people started thinking about American football. So, cards from the last group are rarer and more valuable. In 1952, Topps had a lot of leftover cards from the last group. They dumped many of them into the Atlantic Ocean! The last group in 1952 started with card #311, which is Mickey Mantle's first Topps card. It's still the most valuable Topps card ever. On August 28, 2022, a 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle card sold for $12.6 million.
Kids loved baseball cards with bubble gum. Even though the gum wasn't great and often stained the cards, the cards were the main attraction. The gum was finally removed from baseball card packs in 1992.
Competition for Players
Back then, card companies had to sign individual players to contracts to put them on cards. Topps started doing this in 1950 for its 1951 set. This led to a big competition with Bowman Gum, another company making baseball cards. Bowman had been the main card maker and had signed many players to exclusive deals.
Topps got around Bowman's contracts by selling its 1951 cards with caramel candy instead of gum. But for 1952, Topps made sure its contracts allowed them to sell cards with gum. Bowman sued Topps, saying they were copying them and interfering with their contracts. The court case was complicated.
Because of these contract issues, some Topps sets had "missing" cards. This meant some card numbers were skipped because Topps couldn't legally sell cards for those players. The competition continued until 1956, when Topps bought Bowman. This made Topps the main producer of baseball cards for the next 25 years.
Topps's Monopoly and Its End
The next company to challenge Topps was Fleer, another gum maker. Fleer signed star player Ted Williams to a special contract in 1959. They sold cards featuring him. After Williams retired, Fleer tried making cards of active players in 1963. But Topps still had the rights to most players, so Fleer's set wasn't very successful.
Fleer then supported a government complaint that Topps was being unfair by having all the exclusive contracts. A judge ruled against Topps in 1965, but the decision was overturned. The government said that since the contracts only covered cards with gum, other companies could still sell cards with different small products. However, Fleer didn't try this and instead sold its player contracts to Topps in 1966 for $395,000. This gave Topps almost complete control of the baseball card market.
That same year, the Major League Baseball Players Association (MLBPA), the players' union, tried to change things. They realized they could make a lot of money by letting companies use players' images as a group. The union felt that Topps wasn't paying players enough.
The MLBPA asked Topps to pay more. At this time, Topps had almost every major league player under contract. Topps refused at first. So, the union told players not to sign new contracts with Topps. By the end of the year, Topps agreed to double its payments to each player (from $125 to $250) and also pay players a percentage of Topps's total sales. Today, individual player contracts are $500.
Because of this history, Topps still signs individual players for its baseball card sets. Other companies get group licenses from the MLBPA. This means sometimes a player might not have a Topps card if they don't sign an individual deal. But it also means Topps can make cards for players who opt out of the group license, like Barry Bonds did in 2004.
Competition returned to the baseball card market in the 1970s when Kellogg's started putting "3-D" cards in cereal boxes. Topps didn't try to stop them.
Topps's control over baseball cards finally ended with a lawsuit in 1980. A judge ruled that Topps no longer had the exclusive right to sell baseball cards. This allowed Fleer and another company, Donruss, to enter the market in 1981. They started making big sets of cards with gum, just like Topps. When the ruling was later overturned, Fleer and Donruss started packaging their cards with other baseball items, like stickers or puzzle pieces. This opened the door for other companies too. Topps is still one of the top brands in the baseball card collecting world. To compete, Topps started releasing "Traded" sets with players who had changed teams.
Topps in Modern Baseball Cards
"Traded" sets became important for another reason: they included new rookie players who had just reached the major leagues. Since a "rookie card" is usually the most valuable for a player, companies started competing to be the first to make cards for future stars. They even included highly-rated minor league players. For example, Topps made the first card of Mark McGwire before he played in the major leagues. Topps also brought back its old competitor, Bowman, as a separate brand in 1989. Bowman sets also focused on young players with bright futures.
In 1989, Upper Deck entered the market, making higher-quality cards. Other companies, including Topps, started making different types of card sets for different collectors. This led to too many different baseball sets, and the market struggled. So, in 2006, the MLBPA decided that only Topps and Upper Deck would get licenses. They also limited the number of products and said players couldn't appear on cards before reaching the major leagues.
Topps also tried to sell cards online. In 2000, they launched eTopps, a new brand of sports cards sold only online. These cards were held in a special warehouse unless the buyer asked for them. Topps also bought ThePit.com, a website for online card trading, in 2001. However, this wasn't very successful, and Topps sold the site in 2006.
In 2002, Topps brought back the famous T206 set from 1909–11, but with current players. This "Topps 206" set included a new version of the iconic T206 Honus Wagner card.
In 2007, Topps got collectors' attention when a new card of Yankees' shortstop Derek Jeter was found to have a hidden image of Mickey Mantle and President George W. Bush in the background!
In 2009, Topps became the only official baseball card maker for MLB. This meant Topps had exclusive rights to use MLB and team logos on cards and stickers. This special deal was extended in 2013 and again in 2018, and was set to last until at least 2025.
In 2020, Topps released another new T206 collection called "Topps 206." It included players from both Major and Minor League.
Baseball Card Design
Topps didn't invent baseball cards, but their long history made them define what a baseball card should look like. They set the standard size and created many design elements that are now typical for cards.
Using Player Statistics
One big reason for Topps's success was including player statistics, starting with the 1952 set. Back then, it was hard to find complete stats for all players. Topps actually gathered this information themselves! Collectors loved studying the numbers to compare players, trade cards, or play imaginary baseball games. It even helped kids learn about mathematics.
At first, cards showed stats for the most recent year and the player's total career stats. Bowman quickly copied this. In 1957, Topps started putting full year-by-year stats for a player's entire career on the back of the card. This became a permanent practice in 1963.
Artwork and Photography
The 1971 set was a big moment for baseball card photography. For the first time, Topps included cards with color photos from actual games! Before 1971, Topps mostly used painted portraits or posed shots. The 1971 set is also known for its black borders, which made it hard to find cards in perfect condition.
In 1954, Topps put two pictures on the front of the card: a colored close-up of the player's head and a black-and-white full-length pose. In 1956, the close-up was placed against a colored "game-action" photo.
From 1957 on, almost all cards used posed photographs. Players might pose as if they were batting, pitching, or fielding. Photos didn't appear in sharp focus and natural color until 1962.
Besides individual player cards, Topps sets often included cards for special themes. For example, in 1974, they honored Hank Aaron as he was about to break Babe Ruth's home run record. The 1972 set finally used color photographs for special "In Action" cards of star players. After that, Topps mixed game photos with posed shots in its sets.
Baseball artist Dick Perez started painting art cards for Topps in 2006. His art card series include Turkey Red and Allen & Ginter.
Sometimes, early action photos had problems. They might be out of focus or include several players, making it hard to see the main player. In a few cases, the wrong player was even in the picture! These problems got better as Topps improved its photography.
Before stats and info took over the backs of cards, Topps also featured artwork there. This mostly included cartoons drawn by their artists. These cartoons appeared on card backs until 1982. In 1993, Topps finally managed to put a player photo on the back of the card again, like some competitors had been doing.
Keeping Cards Current
The pictures and info on cards usually came from earlier seasons. So, Topps used different ways to make their cards feel up-to-date. Before they had "Traded" sets, they tried to show players with their new team if they moved in the offseason. Sometimes, they would show the player without a team cap or use airbrushing to remove parts of old team logos. Rookie cards could also be made by airbrushing over minor-league uniforms in photos.
Once, in 1974, Topps got ahead of itself. They showed players with the "Washington Nat'l Lea." team because they expected the San Diego Padres to move to Washington, D.C. When the move didn't happen, Topps had to replace these with cards showing the players still as Padres.
Rarely, Topps has made special cards for players who died or were injured. The 1959 set had a "Symbol Of Courage – Roy Campanella" card. The 1964 set had cards for two recently deceased players. In 2006, after Cory Lidle's tragic death, Topps released his Yankees card with "In Memoriam" on the front.
American Football Cards
Topps also made cards for American football in 1951. Bowman dominated football cards back then, so Topps didn't try again until 1955. That year, they released an All-American set with both active and retired players. After buying Bowman, Topps took over the football card market in 1956.
Topps sold football cards every season until 2016. However, when the American Football League (AFL) started in 1960 to compete with the National Football League, other companies like Fleer began making football cards too.
Even though the football card market wasn't as big as baseball cards, Topps became the only major football card maker again in 1968 after the AFL and NFL merged. Topps also made cards for the short-lived United States Football League in the 1980s. Many NFL legends, like Steve Young and Jim Kelly, had their first cards in these USFL sets.
From the 1970s until 1982, Topps couldn't use actual team logos on helmets and uniforms. So, helmet logos were often airbrushed out.
After the 2015 football season, another company called Panini got the exclusive license from the NFL to make football cards. So, 2016 was the first year Topps didn't make football cards since 1955.
Trading Cards for Other Sports
Topps also makes cards for other major North American professional sports. They started with ice hockey in 1954, featuring players from U.S. teams like the Boston Bruins and New York Rangers.
In 1958, a Canadian company called O-Pee-Chee partnered with Topps to make NHL and Canadian football cards. O-Pee-Chee then started printing its own cards in 1961. Topps also made deals with companies in the UK and Australia.
Topps started making hockey cards again in 1967. From 1968–69 to 1991–92, Topps and O-Pee-Chee hockey sets often had similar designs.
Topps first sold basketball cards in 1957 but stopped after one season. They started again in 1969 and continued until 1982. They then left the market for a decade, missing out on making the valuable rookie cards of stars like Michael Jordan. Topps finally returned to basketball cards in 1992, just in time for Shaquille O'Neal's rookie year!
In the United Kingdom, where football stickers are very popular, Topps bought a British company in 1974. Topps also makes cards for the Scottish Professional Football League. Under its Merlin brand, it has the license to make stickers for the Premier League and the national team. Their main competitor is the Italian company Panini. Until 2019, Topps made 'Topps Premier League' stickers and the Match Attax trading card game. Since 2015, they've also made stickers and trading cards for the UEFA Champions League.
In 2008, Topps got the rights to make WWE trading cards. The first cards were called Slam Attax, similar to their popular football game Match Attax. These were released in the UK first, then in the U.S. Slam Attax became very popular in the UK and Europe.
Also in 2008, Topps and Zuffa, LLC signed a deal to make mixed martial arts trading cards, including fighters from the UFC.
Non-Sports Products
Originally, Topps was just a gum company. Its first product was simply "Topps gum." They later made other gum and candy. Topps also started making funny products not related to sports. This included stickers, posters, and toys. More recently, they published comic books and games.
Candy and Sweets
The longest-running Topps product is still Bazooka bubble gum. It's small pieces of gum in red, white, and blue packaging. Bazooka was introduced in 1947 as a larger bar of gum. In 1953, Topps started selling smaller pieces with the Bazooka Joe comic strip on the wrapper.
Even though baseball cards became their main focus, Topps still made many different candies. For years, most of these products involved gum. But sales dropped in the 1970s when softer bubble gum like Bubble Yum came out.
Later, Topps added more candies without gum, like lollipops such as Ring Pops. However, Topps has noted that more public attention to healthy eating affects their candy sales. In 2005, they thought about selling their candy business but couldn't find a buyer.
Other candy brands include Push Pop, Baby Bottle Pop, and Juicy Drop Pop.
When the Topps name was sold to Fanatics, the candy business became a separate company called Bazooka Brands. It's still owned by the previous owners.
Non-Sports Trading Cards
As sports cards used more photos, Topps focused its art on non-sports trading cards. These cards were inspired by popular culture. For example, the Space Race led to a set of Space Cards in 1958. Topps has continued to make collectible cards and stickers on many topics. These often target the same age group as their baseball cards. They've covered movies, TV shows, and other cultural things like the Beatles and the life of John F. Kennedy. The many Star Wars card series have been very popular.
Many Topps artists also worked in comics. Art Spiegelman was the company's main cartoonist for over 20 years. Other artists included Larry Riley and Mark Newgarden. Topps also hired famous comic book artists like Jack Davis and Wally Wood.
These artists were good at mixing humor and horror, like with the Funny Monsters cards in 1959. The 1962 Mars Attacks cards, painted by Norman Saunders, later inspired a Tim Burton movie.
Some of Topps's most famous funny and parody cards include Wacky Packages, which made fun of household products, and Garbage Pail Kids, which parodied the Cabbage Patch Kids dolls. Another popular series was Civil War News.
In the 1960s, Topps had many successful parody card series. These often featured artists who also worked at Mad magazine. They made funny insult-valentine cards, product advertising parodies, and bizarre alien cards.
While baseball cards have been Topps's most steady product, other non-sports items have sometimes become hugely popular. In 1973, Wacky Packages stickers actually sold more than Topps baseball cards! Pokémon cards did the same thing for a few years starting in 1999.
In 2015, Topps expanded its non-sports category. They added more TV shows and sci-fi with their new Star Wars line (which has its own virtual card app). They also made cards for Doctor Who, including autographs and screen-worn items.
Disney Channel Cards
Topps worked with the Disney Channel to create trading cards for High School Musical, High School Musical 2, High School Musical 3, and Hannah Montana.
Comic Books
Using its connections with artists, Topps started a comic book division in 1993 called Topps Comics. They published ideas from comic legend Jack Kirby. Topps Comics focused on titles related to movies or TV shows, like The X-Files, based on the Fox TV show. This was their longest-running and best-selling comic.
The comic books featured former Marvel Comics editor Jim Salicrup. Besides The X-Files, other famous titles included Lone Ranger and Tonto, Xena: Warrior Princess, and Mars Attacks. With sales slowing down, the company decided to stop publishing comics in 1998.
Games
The Topps Pokémon cards were just for fun and collecting. But a new type of game, collectible card games, was also growing. Topps entered the game world in 2003 by buying the game company WizKids for $29.4 million. This gave them rights to game universes like BattleTech and Shadowrun. WizKids also created a new type of game called Pirates of the Spanish Main. Topps closed Wizkids in 2008 due to economic problems. Another company, NECA, bought the brand in 2009.
Awards
Major League Baseball
- 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 – Topps also gives the George M. Trautman Awards to the Topps Player of the Year in each of sixteen minor leagues.
- Topps Short Season-A/Rookie All-Star Team
See also
- Topps baseball card products
- Allen & Ginter
- Bowman
- Donruss
- Fleer
- Razor Entertainment
- Upper Deck Company
