Baseball cards have been collected worldwide for decades, with the iconic Topps brand leading the way since the 1950s. In Sydney, Australia, Topps cards enjoy a dedicated following among baseball and trading card fans, despite the sport itself not having the same popularity as in North America. With a rich history spanning over 65 years, Topps continues to release new baseball card products that attract collectors both young and old down under.
Topps began in 1938 as a chewing gum manufacturer in Brooklyn, New York. In 1952, they started including a trading card with each pack of gum as a promotional item. This first set featured photos of baseball stars on the front and factual information on the back, kickstarting the baseball card craze. Through the 1950s and 60s, Topps released new annual sets that became highly coveted items for children and sparked the beginning of a booming memorabilia industry.
While Australian Rules Football, Rugby League, and Cricket dominate the local sporting scene, Sydney collectors were exposed to Topps cards through American pop culture influences like movies and television shows in subsequent decades. Enterprising migrants and retailers also helped bring baseball cards to Sydney store shelves alongside other novelty American goods. Exposés to the MLB through media helped foster interest in the sport, cards, and players featured.
Today, dedicated card shops in Sydney stock the extensive lineup of Topps baseball products old and new. Releases of flagship sets like Series 1 and Series 2 are highly anticipated annual events. Traders of all ages frequent stores and conventions to buy packs, complete sets, and find coveted parallels, inserts and hit cards of stars from the past and present. While the secondary ‘wax pack’ market took off in the 1980s-90s, today many collectors in Sydney open boxes and cases of Topps to enjoy the fresh cardboard and chase rare pulls.
Single cards and complete sets from the 1950s-1980s golden era carry immense value as they trickle into the modern collecting scene in Sydney via inheritances and overseas collectors downsizing. Iconic rookie cards of legends like Mickey Mantle, Willie Mays, and Hank Aaron can fetch thousands when in pristine ‘mint’ condition. Stores also stock high-end products geared towards dedicated collectors and investors like Topps Transcendent, where the risk and reward level is much higher than traditional wax packs.
In 2020, Topps made global headlines when they signed an exclusive multi-year deal with MLB, gaining sole rights to produce official league baseball cards starting in 2022. This means competitors like Panini and Leaf cannot use team logos or league marks on their products moving forward. For Sydney collectors, it reinforced Topps’ dominance of the market and legacy as the most prestigious baseball card company. The news was met with a mix of excitement and uncertainty about how it may change the collecting landscape in the future.
A thriving secondary peer-to-peer marketplace also exists in Sydney to buy and sell cards. Facebook groups connect local collectors, while international sites like eBay give access to a global pool of vintage inventory. Larger consignment stores and popular online auctions through companies like Goldin help move higher end vintage and modern collections and individual keys. For investors, tracking recent sales data helps determine the health of certain subsets and players’ markets.
While the MLB fanbase in Sydney may never reach the critical mass of North America, Topps’ iconic baseball cards have certainly found a nostalgic and enthusiastic following. Local collectors share the worldwide passion for chasing the hobby’s endless possibilities in every new release. Through generations of products and the record-breaking transactions of championship rookies, Topps’ branding and cardboard classics remain deeply embedded in popular culture, finding new fans Down Under as enthusiastically as anywhere on earth.
