The Topps Company, Inc. is an American company best known today for producing entertaining collectibles such as American sports cards, international soccer cards, entertainment cards, pop culture cards and other confectionery products. Topps was founded in 1938 by four brothers in Brooklyn, New York – Edward, Ira, Joseph, and Abram Shorin. It’s their baseball trading card line launched in the 1950s that is considered the beginning of their heritage.
Prior to Topps, sports cards were mainly produced by cigarette and chewing gum companies as advertisement incentives. The Shorins saw an opportunity to market cards independently and approached Bowman Gum about licensing major league players. Bowman declined because they didn’t want competition, so Topps struck out on their own in 1951, producing and distributing their own baseball cards. Despite warnings that collectors would lose interest, Topps’ initial $500 investment was a resounding success and football and other trading cards soon followed.
Topps’ 1952 baseball card design became the template for the modern baseball card. Their minimalist aesthetic focused on bold photography and player stats over advertising. Collectors responded to the cards’ simplicity and photographic realism compared to the elaborately-illustrated issues from companies like Bowman. Topps gained 90% market share within a few short years. They also fostered a new sense of nostalgia for the cards among baby boomers as they grew up tracking their favorite players from year to year amid baseball’s golden age.
Topps took collecting to another level with innovations like the patented “bubble gum in the pack” design in 1956 and the mini card “Precious Moments” subsets in 1967. They produced other memorable subsets like “Traded” cards featuring players on their new teams in 1969 and the hugely popular “Golden Greats” retrospective issue in 1969 as well. Topps met the challenge of color photography head-on with their pop-art inspired 1973 designers. However the most iconic Topps innovation was photo variations, inserted randomly into packs starting in 1959 to increase collector chase and hobby longevity.
The baseball card boom of the 1980s, driven by collecting rekindled nostalgia and investment speculation, saw Topps at the height of its power as the monopoly sports card manufacturer. In 1987, Topps issued an astounding 782 different baseball cards across 16 different sets. Mounting production costs and steady decline of the baseball card market forced Topps into decline by the 1990s. Following the introduction of new competitors Upper Deck and Pinnacle in 1989, Topps’ market share dropped below 50%.
In response, Topps launched innovative insert sets and parallels like “Bazooka” redemptions and attempted to stay ahead of trends by producing sets for other sports like basketball and football. High overhead costs strained the business. After riding the boom and bust cycle for decades, Topps was acquired in 2007 by former MLB pitchers Michael Eisner and private equity firm Madison Dearborn Partners. This ended the company’s decades as a family-owned Brooklyn institution but set it on more stable footing for the future.
Under new ownership, Topps continues producing popular heritage baseball sets like Bowman and Topps flagship while licensing products for hit franchises like Star Wars, WWF Wrestling, Garbage Pail Kids and Marvel Comics. In recent years they’ve also found success with fast-growing digital and subscription offerings. For collectors nothing quite captures that nostalgic sense of magic like 1950s-70s Topps baseball cards. Their clear, colorful photography and attention to detail established the look and feel instantly recognizable as “Topps” – forever linked to backyard dreams of stepping up to the plate at Ebbets Field or Yankee Stadium.
From innovation to boom and decline, Topps’ nearly 75-year history in publishing baseball cards forms a rich tapestry woven through America’s national pastime. Their simple yet iconic designs sparked eras of collecting mania while fostering nostalgia that still resonates today. Whether ruling the monopoly or finding new niches, Topps’ persistence and ability to evolve ensured their tradition continued for future generations to discover the thrill of the card pack’s mystery. That heritage as pioneers of the modern sports card endures as fondly as any legend enshrined in their Diamond Kings subset.
