In 1987, Topps produced their annual set of baseball trading cards for the 1987 MLB season. The 1987 Topps baseball card set is considered one of the most iconic and popular releases from the classic era of baseball cards from the 1970s through the early 1990s. For the 1987 set, Topps printed a total of 792 baseball cards that made up the base card checklist.
In addition to the base cards, Topps also produced several special and parallel subset series that were inserted randomly in packs. This included short print cards, rookie/star cards, traded sets, and international subset cards. When you factor in all the inserted parallel and special subsets, the total published number of unique 1987 Topps baseball cards reached over 800 different cards.
For the main 792 card base set, Topps’ print run was massive to meet the intense consumer demand for baseball cards during the late 1980s peak of the hobby. Reliable industry sources and sports memorabilia experts who have analyzed production records from Topps estimate that the total number of 1987 Topps base cards printed was around 1.3 billion individual cards.
This print run size of 1.3 billion was a drastic increase compared to print runs from just a few years prior. For comparison, the 1981 Topps set had a print run estimated at around 400-500 million cards. So the 1987 release more than doubled the output from just 6 years earlier. With millions of children, teenagers, and adults collecting at the time, Topps needed to mass produce cards to keep up with demand.
The 1.3 billion card estimate is also backed up by the sheer volume of 1987 Topps cards that still exist today on the marketplace over 30 years later. This huge supply is a testament to the immense print run that Topps undertook. While other 1980s sets have become quite scarce as the years pass, 1987s can still be readily found in collections, at card shows, and online due to the massive initial number printed.
To put Topps’ 1987 print run size into further context, it is important to note that they dominated the baseball card market in the late 1980s. Their closest competitors at Fleer and Donruss were smaller companies that did not have the printing capabilities that Topps possessed. Fleer is estimated to have printed around 400-500 million cards for their 1987 set. And Donruss production was even lower, likely between 200-300 million for that year.
The mammoth 1.3 billion card print run allowed Topps to saturate the market and make their 1987 set the most available offering for collectors compared to the smaller output from Fleer and Donruss. The high supply also helped 1987 Topps cards retain value better over time due to their ubiquity. Even though it has been over 30 years since the set was released, unopened 1987 packs can still occasionally be found at card shops and flea markets today.
In total, when considering all the special parallel and inserted subsets beyond the main 792 card base checklist, Topps’ complete 1987 output reached over 800 unique baseball cards. And the total number of individual 1987 Topps cards printed for distribution is estimated by industry experts to have been approximately 1.3 billion, making it one of the highest print runs in the history of baseball cards thus far. This unprecedented production volume helped make the 1987 Topps set one of the most successful and collectible card issues ever.
