The Brooklyn Dodgers were one of the most storied franchises in Major League Baseball history during their time playing in Brooklyn, New York from the 1890s until they moved to Los Angeles after the 1957 season. As one of the earliest professional baseball teams, the Dodgers have an extensive history that is well documented through baseball cards produced over the decades.
Some of the earliest baseball cards featuring Brooklyn Dodgers players date back to the late 1800s during the early days of the franchise and print media. In 1887, the American Tobacco Company began inserting cards into packages of cigarettes featuring baseball players as a promotional item. Several Dodgers players from that era like Dave Foutz and Jack Farrell appeared on these tobacco cards. The cards were quite small and featured simple black and white images with no statistics or biographies.
The modern era of baseball cards truly began in 1909 when the Cincinnati based company American Caramel began inserting larger color cards into caramel and gum packages. That year they produced the famous “T206” series which included stars like Nap Lajoie and Honus Wagner. Several Dodgers of that time period also appeared, such as Wilbert Robinson who managed the team for years. In the 1910s and 1920s, companies like Play Ball and Hassan Printing produced sets that included early Dodgers stars like Zack Wheat, Burleigh Grimes, and Casey Stengel.
In the 1930s, the Goudey Gum Company began producing high quality cards that are still popular with collectors today. Their 1933 set included cards of Dazzy Vance, Leo Durocher, and Roy Campanella when he was just breaking into the majors. In the late 1930s, the National Chicle Company produced sets under the brand name “Diamond Stars” that had cards of pitchers Van Lingle Mungo and Whit Wyatt at the peak of their careers.
The post-World War 2 era saw an explosion in baseball card production, led by the iconic Topps brand that began in 1951. Some of the most valuable and desirable vintage Dodgers cards come from the 1950s when the team featured all-time greats like Jackie Robinson, Pee Wee Reese, Duke Snider, Roy Campanella, Don Drysdale, and Sandy Koufax. The 1952 and 1953 Topps sets are particularly sought after by collectors, showing these players in their prime Brooklyn years. Highlights include the iconic Jackie Robinson rookie card from 1952 Topps, which recently sold for a record price of over $2 million.
Other 1950s brands like Bowman, Red Man, Leaf, and Play Ball also produced sets during this golden era for the Dodgers in Brooklyn. Notable rare variants include the 1952 Bowman color cards of Robinson and Campanella. The franchise’s last season in 1957 before moving to LA was documented well by Topps and other manufacturers, preserving the final Brooklyn-based cards of legends like Gil Hodges and Carl Furillo.
After the move to Los Angeles, Topps continued producing Dodgers cards through the 1950s and 60s as Koufax, Drysdale, Maury Wills, and Tommy Davis led the franchise to success on the west coast. The 1960s also saw the rise of the rival Fleer and Post brands, adding to the choices for collectors. In the 1970s, as stars like Steve Garvey and Ron Cey emerged, Topps faced new competition from rivals like Kellogg’s, Donruss, and the Canadian O-Pee-Chee brand that produced English-French bilingual cards for their home market.
The 1980s saw the Dodgers reach the World Series three times behind pitchers like Fernando Valenzuela, Orel Hershiser and Kirk Gibson, who all had popular cards produced during the decade by Topps and Donruss. The 1990s saw stars like Mike Piazza, Eric Karros, and Hideo Nomo featured in the new sets from Upper Deck, Score, and Fleer Ultra that helped boost the modern baseball card boom.
In the 2000s and 2010s, manufacturers like Topps, Bowman, and Panini have continued producing new Dodgers cards, documenting current stars Clayton Kershaw, Cody Bellinger, Mookie Betts and more. Meanwhile, vintage Dodgers cards from the Brooklyn and early Los Angeles eras remain popular with collectors. The historic significance of players like Robinson, Reese, Snider, and Koufax ensure strong demand and increasing value for their classic 1950s cards in particular.
Whether it’s a rare T206 Honus Wagner, a pristine 1952 Topps Jackie Robinson, or a modern Prizm refractor of Mookie Betts, Brooklyn and Los Angeles Dodgers cards represent one of the most storied franchises in baseball history. The visual documentation of over a century of Dodgers players is a big part of what makes collecting their cards so appealing for both casual fans and serious investors alike. As one of the first professional teams, the Dodgers helped drive interest in baseball cards from the beginning, and their historic legacy is preserved through the extensive array of cards produced over the decades.
