Baseball cards have been an integral part of American pop culture and childhood nostalgia for over a century. While the industry has seen many ups and downs over the decades, one city has played an important role in the story of baseball cards – Grand Rapids, Michigan.
Located in Western Michigan along the Grand River, Grand Rapids developed into a major manufacturing hub beginning in the late 19th century. Several paper product and printing companies set up shop in the city to take advantage of the abundant water power from the river and nearby lakes. It was these paper and printing businesses that would play a key role in the early baseball card industry.
Some of the earliest baseball cards produced in the late 1800s were included as promotional inserts in cigarette and other tobacco products. The American Tobacco Company and other large cigarette manufacturers contracted local paper companies to produce the cards that were included in their packs and tins of tobacco. In 1891, several Grand Rapids-based paper companies began printing baseball cards as inserts for brands like Allen & Ginter and Goodwin & Company.
These early Grand Rapids-printed cards set the standard for design and production quality that the baseball card industry would follow for decades. Advances in four-color lithography allowed for highly detailed illustrations and photographs on the cards. The water powered mills and state-of-the-art printing presses in Grand Rapids ensured a high volume of cards could be produced at low costs. This helped popularize the inclusion of baseball cards in cigarettes and fueled the growing collector hobby.
In the early 20th century, several Grand Rapids companies emerged as leaders in the mass production of baseball cards. The Excelsior Lithograph Company and Piedmont Printing Company contracted with the largest tobacco brands to produce millions of cards annually. Excelsior’s factory on Fulton Street churned out cards at an incredible pace using steam powered rotary lithographic presses. The quality and quantity coming out of Grand Rapids plants established the city as the epicenter of early baseball card manufacturing.
As the tobacco industry declined in the 1950s due to health concerns, the baseball card market collapsed. Many of the Grand Rapids printing companies that dominated production for decades went out of business. The future of baseball cards was uncertain until the late 1950s when Topps Gum emerged as the new dominant force in the hobby. Topps signed licensing deals with both major leagues and began inserting single cards into packs of chewing gum.
In 1960, Topps moved much of its baseball card production to a new state-of-the-art factory in Grand Rapids. Located on the city’s southeast side, the Topps plant utilized the latest web offset printing technology to produce its iconic wax packs of gum and cards. For the next 30 years, millions of Topps packs from nearly every annual set from 1960 to 1991 would be manufactured in Grand Rapids.
The Topps factory became a major employer in Grand Rapids, with over 500 workers during baseball card production season. It also cemented the city’s legacy as a center of the modern baseball card industry. Even as Topps moved some production overseas in later decades, Grand Rapids remained home to one of its largest manufacturing and distribution hubs. For collectors across the country during the 1960s-80s boom, many of the cards in their collections likely passed through the Topps plant.
In the 1990s, the baseball card market experienced another downturn as the arrival of expensive autographed and memorabilia cards failed to attract new collectors. Facing slumping sales and rising production costs, Topps closed its Grand Rapids factory for good in 1998, ending nearly four decades of card manufacturing in the city. It was a blow to the local economy and collectors nostalgic about the Topps brand’s deep roots in West Michigan.
However, Grand Rapids has continued playing a role in the baseball card industry through local hobby shops and the passionate collector community. Places like Steen Sport Cards, Bob’s Baseball Card World and Grand Rapids Sport Cards have thrived as destinations for fans to buy, sell and trade cards. Major card shows still draw collectors from across the Midwest to the DeVos Place Convention Center each year.
The Grand Rapids Public Museum even hosts an exhibit dedicated to the history of baseball cards in the city. Featuring examples from the tobacco era through the heyday of Topps in the 1960s-70s, it celebrates Grand Rapids’ important but often overlooked contributions. With its rich manufacturing past, the legacy of companies like Excelsior and Topps will always be remembered by collectors in Grand Rapids and beyond. With local shops and events keeping the hobby alive, its influence on baseball cards also lives on.
From the late 19th century origins supplying tobacco inserts to the modern era as Topps’ primary manufacturing hub, Grand Rapids carved out a unique niche in the story of baseball cards in America. Advanced printing technology and a skilled workforce allowed the city to dominate early production. Even after factory closings, Grand Rapids remains a hotbed for collectors and an example of how local history can be intertwined with the growth of a globally recognized pop culture phenomenon.
