Tims Baseball Cards: A Brief History
Tims Baseball Cards originated in the late 1950s during baseball’s golden age. Founded by Tim Murphy in 1957, the young entrepreneur saw an opportunity to capitalize on America’s growing obsession with the national pastime. Baseball card collecting was taking off, fueled by affordable packs sold in stores, drug stores and gas stations across the country. Murphy recognized the untapped potential of this emerging market and sought to capture a share of it.
Operating out of a small print shop in Brooklyn, New York, Murphy assembled a small team and got to work designing, printing and distributing his own brand of baseball cards. His first few series featured current players from that era’s dominant teams like the Yankees, Dodgers and Giants. Cards sold for a nickel per pack and featured vibrant color photos on one side with player stats and career highlights on the reverse. Within a few short years, Tims Baseball had earned a loyal following among collectors.
In the early 1960s, Murphy expanded distribution through partnerships with convenience store chains in the Northeast like 7-Eleven. This helped drive wider awareness of the Tims brand beyond specialty hobby shops. New card sets focused on rookie players, milestones and even included retired legends from the deadball era in a “Cooperstown Collection.” By the mid-1960s, Tims was among the top three producers of baseball cards in the country.
One of Tims’ most iconic and valuable sets was the hugely popular 1968 ‘Postseason Spectaculars.’ Released just after that year’s World Series, it featured huge action photos of Bob Gibson’s masterful World Series performance and Mickey Mantle’s epic home run in his final at-bat. Only a small number of Gibson rookie cards from 1959 are rarer in the hobby today. The 1968 set signaled Tims’ commitment to timely releases capitalizing on that year’s biggest stories and performances.
Through the 1970s, Tims continued innovating by experimenting with oddball designs, die-cut shapes, embossed textures and even 3D lenticular cards. One of their most surreal concepts were a series marketed as “psychic prediction” cards, which claimed to foretell a player’s future using palm readings and astrological forecasts. While mostly a novelty, it demonstrated Murphy’s willingness to take creative risks.
As baseball card fever reached a peak in the late 1980s, Tims launched premium high-end sets featuring rare autograph and memorabilia cards that could fetch hundreds or even thousands of dollars. They also acquired the licenses to produce official cards for the Negro Leagues and Latin American winter leagues. This helped expand their audience and collector base beyond the U.S.
By the 1990s, Tims had become one of the few independent producers able to compete against sports card powerhouses like Topps, Fleer and Upper Deck. Mounting production costs, licensing expenses and new anti-gambling laws threatened to disrupt the entire trading card industry. In 1995, Tims was acquired by entertainment giant Marvel, who sought to leverage its brand portfolio.
Under new ownership, Tims cards adopted a glossier look with die-cuts shaped like the Marvel comic book logo. While creatively ambitious, collectors lamented the designs as too gimmicky. A 1996 Pete Rose rookie card featuring the gambler framed in jail bars sold poorly. By 1997, Marvel shuttered the Tims brand, liquidating inventories. Its final product was an oversized “Epic Finest” set with swatches so small they were barely detectable.
After over 40 prolific years, the Tims legacy endured in their iconic vintage designs cherished by collectors. Memorabilia from their archives fetched top prices at auction in subsequent decades. In 2010, original founders Murphy and son Tim Jr. acquired the dormant Tims name and trademarks. They began selective reissues of their most coveted 1960s and 1970s sets, which sold out immediately online.
Today, first edition Tims cards remain a desirable niche within the larger baseball collecting community. Especially their innovative oddball issues capture imaginations of what could have been had Marvel not cut the brand short. While it no longer produces new products, the nostalgia and mystique around Tims’ early pioneering years ensures its place in hobby history. Through booms and busts, Tims Baseball Cards defined playful creativity and paved the way for independent producers who followed in its footsteps.
