Topps baseball trading cards have been a staple of the hobby for over 70 years. The company was founded in 1938 by The Topps Chewing Gum Inc. in Brooklyn, New York. While Topps produced various trading cards up until the 1950s featuring celebrities and other sports, it was not until 1951 that they embarked upon making dedicated baseball cards as the official licensor of Major League Baseball teams and players.
Their debut 1951 Topps baseball card set featured cards of all 16 major league teams from that season. Each card had a player image on the front along with the team name and logo. No career stats or biographical information were included on the early Topps cards. The backs featured a simple purple and yellow geometric design with no written content. The set had 202 total cards and sold for $1 per wax paper wrapper containing 5 random cards. It was an immediate success and marked the first major entry of Topps into the lucrative baseball card market that has endured to this day.
Topps continued releasing annual baseball card sets nearly every year since. In the early years of the 1950s the design and production values improved little each season. By the mid 1950s, Topps began including limited career stats and bios on the back of the cards. Color photography was also introduced in the 1957 Topps set which made for much more eye-catching and desirable cards for collectors. The 1959 Topps set grew to 413 total cards and introduced the famous “bowl back” design with curved edges on the cards that is still influential today in baseball card design.
In the 1960s, Topps began signing multi-year exclusive contracts with MLB that prevented competition from other card manufacturers for several seasons at a time. This allowed Topps to expand sets substantially each year throughout the booming popularity of the sport in that era. Notable milestones included the 1964 Topps set reaching a new high of 660 total cards and the 1968 issue being the first to surpass 700 cards with 714 included. Color photography became standard across entire sets by the late 1960s as well.
The 1970s saw unprecedented growth in the size of Topps baseball card sets. The 1973 Topps set included a mammoth 872 total cards. Even larger sets followed such as the 1979 edition with an amazing 888 cards despite the onset of a player strike that shortened the season. New subsets were introduced like rookie/prospect cards, team leader cards, and traded player cards which added variety. Additional information started appearing on the back of cards like monthly minor league stats.
In the 1980s, Topps further expanded sets and added innovative marketing ideas. The flagship 1984 Topps set included an all-time high of 792 cards. That same year Topps also launched the first Traded set focused only on players traded during the previous season which provided updates to their main sets. High number parallels were also first introduced with sticker variations. But competition was on the rise from rival manufacturers like Donruss, Fleer and Score who eventually broke Topps monopoly on MLB properties.
This led to a period known as the “Card Wars” in the late 1980s and 1990s that drove innovation and mass production of sets. By 1989 there were over 4000 baseball cards annually produced by the various companies. Topps released multiple short printed and parallels within sets and experimented with oddball promotions like 3-D cards. In the turbulent sports card investment crash of the 1990s, Topps adapted by emphasizing the collecting hobby and heritage aspects. Industry consolidation reduced competitors over the following decade.
Today, Topps remains the leading brand in baseball cards. Each year they release their flagship Series 1, 2 and Update sets along with special retro releases and high-end products. Due to strong collector demand, set sizes have remained very large with the modern flagship issues still featuring close to 600 cards or more. Additional information and photography has enhanced the baseball content on each card. Through seven decades, Topps has cemented itself in the history of the hobby and culture of baseball fandom via their iconic trading cards that remain popular with both collectors and fans.
