Ralston Purina first began including small baseball cards in packages of cereal and snacks in 1938 as a marketing promotion. These cards were essentially brand advertisements featuring photos of professional baseball players. The concept was successful and the company continued producing and distributing the cards annually through 1962 under the Topps brand.
The Topps cards issued from 1938 to 1962 are considered the classic era in the company’s storied history of baseball card production. Over this 25-year span, Topps set the standard for baseball cards that still exists today through innovative designs, high quality production values, and capturing the sport’s biggest stars and moments. These vintage Topps cards from the Ralston Purina era remain hugely popular with collectors seeking representations of their favorite historic ballplayers and teams.
Among the notable attributes of the early Ralston Purina Topps baseball cards were that they initially measured a standard 2.125 inches by 2.5 inches in size, which became the industry standard. The fronts featured a headshot photo of the player along with their identifying information like team, position, and batting or pitching statistics from the prior season. Later issues in the 1950s started incorporating action photos showing the players in action.
Topps was innovative by including short biographical facts and personal information about the players on the back of many cards starting in the early 1950s. This helped tell the human stories behind the athletes and engage fans on a deeper level. The backs also included advertisements for Ralston Purina products from cereal to dog food. While an ad, it helped fund the production of the cards.
Some of the most notable and valuable rookie cards issued during the Ralston Purina era include Mickey Mantle’s 1952 card, which is one of the most coveted and expensive trading cards in existence today. Other star rookie cards include Ted Williams from 1938, Willie Mays from 1951, and Hank Aaron’s 1954 card among many others. These early issues established iconic players as the new stars emerged and remain highly collectible today.
Topps released complete annual sets each year that allowed young collectors to accumulate all the major league players for that season. They started with 109 cards in 1951 and peaked at 383 cards when they lost their monopoly in 1961. Notable subsets included highlight/action photo cards beginning in 1952 and team-centric issues that provided a photo of each club. Color was added to certain subsets and highlights starting in the late 1950s.
The Ralston Purina company’s involvement ended when they sold the baseball card rights to ToppsChewing Gum in 1962. However, Topps continued to be the dominant baseball card producer each year, retaining the design aspects and production innovations established during the company’s first 24 years under Ralston Purina’s umbrella. This formative era saw Topps baseball cards achieve mainstream popularity among children and collectors alike looking to build complete sets of the sports’ biggest stars.
While competitors like Bowman and Fleer briefly challenged Topps in 1951-1955, Topps regained the upper hand due to exclusive licensing deals with Major League Baseball in 1956 and maintained this monopoly through 1981. Rival brands like Fleer were able to produce cards again starting in 1982 but Topps remains the longest continuous producer of baseball cards, with deep roots stemming back to their origin under Ralston Purina in the late 1930s. Without question, the ideas first conceptualized for that first 1938 set laid the groundwork for the industry that emerged.
Collectors today still eagerly seek early issues from the Ralston Purina Topps era spanning 1938-1962 for their historical significance, iconic photos, to acquire coveted rookie cards of future Hall of Famers, and to simply own a physical tangible representation of some of baseball’s greatest players from the formative era immediately following the Great Depression through the end of the 1950s. While prices have risen dramatically for high grade examples of the most desirable cards, complete or partial runs can still be assembled by diligent collectors hunting in shops and online auctions. Finding that special card from this classic span in one’s childhood collection can still provide a thrill and tangible link to the past for those who grew up with these issues as young fans. The Ralston Purina run established Topps as the industry leader and set the template for the modern baseball card that remains a cornerstone of fandom and collecting today.
