Topps
Encyclopedia
- For the meat company, see Topps Meat CompanyTopps Meat CompanyTopps Meat Company was a privately owned family company founded in 1940 by Benjamin Sachs in Manhattan, New York. The company later relocated to Elizabeth, New Jersey....
.
The Topps Company, Inc., manufactures chewing gum
Chewing gum
Chewing gum is a type of gum traditionally made of chicle, a natural latex product, or synthetic rubber known as polyisobutylene. For economical and quality reasons, many modern chewing gums use rubber instead of chicle...
, candy
Candy
Candy, specifically sugar candy, is a confection made from a concentrated solution of sugar in water, to which flavorings and colorants are added...
and collectible
Collectible
A collectable or collectible is any object regarded as being of value or interest to a collector . There are numerous types of collectables and terms to denote those types. An antique is a collectable that is old...
s. Based in New York, New York
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
, Topps is best known as a leading producer of baseball card
Baseball card
A baseball card is a type of trading card relating to baseball, usually printed on some type of paper stock or card stock. A card will usually feature one or more baseball players or other baseball-related sports figures...
s, football cards, basketball cards, hockey card
Hockey card
A Hockey card is a type of trading card typically printed on some sort of card stock, featuring one or more hockey players or other hockey-related editorial and are typically found in countries such as Canada, the United States, Finland and Sweden where hockey is a popular sport and there are...
s and other sports and non-sports themed trading card
Trading card
A trading card is a small card, usually made out of paperboard or thick paper, which usually contains an image of a certain person, place or thing and a short description of the picture, along with other text...
s.
Company history
Topps itself was founded in 1938, but the company can trace its roots back to an earlier firm, American Leaf Tobacco. Founded in 1890 by Morris Shorin, the American Leaf Tobacco Co. imported tobaccoTobacco
Tobacco is an agricultural product processed from the leaves of plants in the genus Nicotiana. It can be consumed, used as a pesticide and, in the form of nicotine tartrate, used in some medicines...
to the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
and sold it to other tobacco companies. (American Leaf Tobacco should not be confused with the American Tobacco Company
American Tobacco Company
The American Tobacco Company was a tobacco company founded in 1890 by J. B. Duke through a merger between a number of U.S. tobacco manufacturers including Allen and Ginter and Goodwin & Company...
, which monopolized U.S.-grown tobacco during this period.)
American Leaf Tobacco encountered difficulties during World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
, as it was cut off from Turkish
Turkey
Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...
supplies of tobacco, and later as a result of the Great Depression
Great Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
. Shorin's sons, Abram, Ira, Philip, and Joseph, decided to focus on a new product but take advantage of the company's existing distribution channels. To do this, they relaunched the company as Topps, with the name meant to indicate that it would be "tops" in its field. The chosen field was the manufacture of chewing gum
Chewing gum
Chewing gum is a type of gum traditionally made of chicle, a natural latex product, or synthetic rubber known as polyisobutylene. For economical and quality reasons, many modern chewing gums use rubber instead of chicle...
, selected after going into the produce
Produce
Produce is a generalized term for a group of farm-produced goods and, not limited to fruits and vegetables . More specifically, the term "produce" often implies that the products are fresh and generally in the same state as where they were harvested. In supermarkets the term is also used to refer...
business was considered and rejected.
At the time, chewing gum was still a relative novelty sold in individual pieces. Topps’ most successful early product was Bazooka
Bazooka (chewing gum)
Bazooka is a brand of bubble gum.It was first marketed shortly after World War II in the U.S. by the Topps Company of Brooklyn, New York. The gum was packaged in a patriotic red, white, and blue color scheme. Beginning in 1953, Topps changed the packaging to include small comic strips with the gum,...
bubblegum
Bubblegum
Bubblegum is a type of elastic chewing gum, designed to be blown out of the mouth as a bubble.-History:In 1928, Walter Diemer, an accountant for the Fleer Chewing Gum Company in Philadelphia, was experimenting with new gum recipes. One recipe was found to be less sticky than regular chewing gum,...
, which was packaged with a small comic on the wrapper. Starting in 1950, the company decided to try increasing gum sales by packaging them together with trading cards featuring Western character Hopalong Cassidy
Hopalong Cassidy
Hopalong Cassidy is a fictional cowboy hero created in 1904 by the author Clarence E. Mulford, who wrote a series of popular short stories and twenty-eight novels based on the character....
(William Boyd
William Boyd (actor)
William Lawrence Boyd was an American film actor best known for portraying Hopalong Cassidy.-Biography:...
); at the time Boyd, as one of the biggest stars of early television, was featured in newspaper articles and on magazine covers, along with a significant amount of "Hoppy" merchandising. When Topps next introduced baseball cards as a product, the cards immediately became its primary emphasis.
The "father of the modern baseball card" was Sy Berger
Sy Berger
Sy Berger was an employee of the Topps company for over 50 years. He is credited as being the co-designer of the 1952 Topps baseball series.-Topps:Berger's first day at Topps was also the first day that Topps began to produce Bazooka Gum...
. In the autumn of 1951, Berger, then a 28-year-old veteran of World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, designed the 1952 Topps baseball card
Baseball card
A baseball card is a type of trading card relating to baseball, usually printed on some type of paper stock or card stock. A card will usually feature one or more baseball players or other baseball-related sports figures...
set with Woody Gelman
Woody Gelman
Woodrow Gelman , better known as Woody Gelman, was a publisher, a cartoonist, a novelist and an artist-writer for animation and comic books. As the publisher of Nostalgia Press, he pioneered the reprinting of vintage comic strips in quality hardcovers and trade paperbacks...
on the kitchen table of his apartment on Alabama Avenue in Brooklyn. The card design included a player's name, photo, facsimile autograph, team name and logo on the front; and the player's height, weight, bats, throws, birthplace, birthday, stats and a short biography on the back. The basic design is still in use today. Berger would work for Topps for 50 years (1947–97) and serve as a consultant for another five, becoming a well-known figure on the baseball scene, and the face of Topps to major league baseball players, whom he signed up annually and paid in merchandise, like refrigerators and carpeting.
The Shorins, in recognition of his negotiation abilities, sent Sy to London in 1964 to negotiate the rights for Topps to produce Beatles trading cards. Arriving without an appointment, Sy succeeded by speaking in Yiddish to Brian Epstein
Brian Epstein
Brian Samuel Epstein , was an English music entrepreneur, and is best known for being the manager of The Beatles up until his death. He also managed several other musical artists such as Gerry & the Pacemakers, Billy J. Kramer and the Dakotas, Cilla Black, The Remo Four & The Cyrkle...
, the Beatles manager.
Berger hired a garbage boat to remove leftover boxes of 1952 baseball cards stored in their warehouse, and rode with them as a tugboat pulled them off the New Jersey
New Jersey
New Jersey is a state in the Northeastern and Middle Atlantic regions of the United States. , its population was 8,791,894. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York, on the southeast and south by the Atlantic Ocean, on the west by Pennsylvania and on the southwest by Delaware...
shore. The cards were then dumped into the Atlantic Ocean. The cards included Mickey Mantle's first Topps card, the most valuable card of the modern era. No one at the time, of course, knew the collector's value the cards would one day attain. Currently, a pack of 1952 Topps baseball cards is worth at least $5,000.
Incorporation
The company began its existence as Topps Chewing Gum, Inc., a partnershipPartnership
A partnership is an arrangement where parties agree to cooperate to advance their mutual interests.Since humans are social beings, partnerships between individuals, businesses, interest-based organizations, schools, governments, and varied combinations thereof, have always been and remain commonplace...
between the four Shorin brothers. It later incorporated under New York law in 1947. The entire company originally operated at the Bush Terminal
Bush Terminal
Bush Terminal now known as Industry City is a historic intermodal shipping, warehousing, and manufacturing complex on the waterfront in the Sunset Park neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York City...
in Brooklyn
Brooklyn
Brooklyn is the most populous of New York City's five boroughs, with nearly 2.6 million residents, and the second-largest in area. Since 1896, Brooklyn has had the same boundaries as Kings County, which is now the most populous county in New York State and the second-most densely populated...
, but production facilities were moved to a plant in Duryea, Pennsylvania
Duryea, Pennsylvania
Duryea is a borough in the Greater Pittston area of Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, USA, nine miles south of Scranton on the Lackawanna River. Duryea was incorporated as a borough in 1891. Coal mining and the manufacture of silk were the chief industries in the early years of its existence. The...
in 1965. Corporate offices remained at 254 36th Street in New York, a location in the Brooklyn waterfront district by the Gowanus Expressway. In 1994, the headquarters relocated to One Whitehall Street in lower Manhattan
Manhattan
Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...
.
After being privately held for several decades, Topps offered stock to the public for the first time in 1972 with the assistance of investment banking firm White, Weld & Co. The company returned to private ownership when it was acquired in a leveraged buyout
Leveraged buyout
A leveraged buyout occurs when an investor, typically financial sponsor, acquires a controlling interest in a company's equity and where a significant percentage of the purchase price is financed through leverage...
led by Forstmann Little & Company
Forstmann Little & Company
Forstmann, Little & Company is a private equity firm, specializing in leveraged buyouts . At its peak in the late 1990s, Forstmann Little was among the largest private equity firms globally...
in 1984. The new ownership group again made Topps into a publicly traded company in 1987, now renamed to The Topps Company, Inc. In this incarnation, the company was incorporated in Delaware
Delaware corporation
The Delaware General Corporation Law is the statute governing corporate law in the state of Delaware. Delaware is well known as a corporate haven. Over 50% of U.S...
for legal reasons, but company headquarters remained in New York. Management was left in the hands of the Shorin family throughout all of these maneuverings.
Shareholder dispute and buyout
Criticism of the company's financial performance and flat stock price led two hedge fundHedge fund
A hedge fund is a private pool of capital actively managed by an investment adviser. Hedge funds are only open for investment to a limited number of accredited or qualified investors who meet criteria set by regulators. These investors can be institutions, such as pension funds, university...
s holding 7.4% of the stock to launch a proxy fight
Proxy fight
A proxy fight or proxy battle is an event that may occur when a corporation's stockholders develop opposition to some aspect of the corporate governance, often focusing on directorial and management positions. Corporate activists may attempt to persuade shareholders to use their proxy votes A proxy...
in July 2006. Calling for better management of the company as the Topps Full Value Committee, they tried to place three members on the company's board of directors
Board of directors
A board of directors is a body of elected or appointed members who jointly oversee the activities of a company or organization. Other names include board of governors, board of managers, board of regents, board of trustees, and board of visitors...
at the annual shareholder meeting. In a compromise with Topps, the three dissident shareholders were elected to the Topps board to replace two directors running for re-election, while CEO Arthur Shorin (son of Joseph) stayed on as a tenth member of the board.
The battle extended into 2007 with a $385 million buyout offer led by the firms Madison Dearborn
Madison Dearborn
Madison Dearborn Partners is a private equity firm specializing in leveraged buyouts of privately held or publicly traded companies, or divisions of larger companies; recapitalizations of family-owned or closely held companies; balance sheet restructurings; acquisition financings; and growth...
and Tornante
Tornante
The Tornante Company is a privately held investment firm founded by former The Walt Disney Company CEO Michael Eisner in 2005. Tornante invests in and creates media and entertainment....
(an investment company started by former longtime Disney CEO Michael Eisner
Michael Eisner
Michael Dammann Eisner is an American businessman. He was the chief executive officer of The Walt Disney Company from 1984 until 2005.-Early life:...
). The price of $9.75 per share was endorsed by Topps executives, but the dissident board members felt it undervalued the company and pushed to shop for other bidders. This led to discussions of a potential merger with the rival Upper Deck Company
Upper Deck Company
The Upper Deck Company, LLC , founded in 1988, is a private company primarily known for producing trading cards...
, which was prepared to buy Topps for $10.75 per share (a total of about $425 million). Topps management decided to reject this offer, citing concerns about the financing and potential antitrust
Antitrust
The United States antitrust law is a body of laws that prohibits anti-competitive behavior and unfair business practices. Antitrust laws are intended to encourage competition in the marketplace. These competition laws make illegal certain practices deemed to hurt businesses or consumers or both,...
regulation; Upper Deck pursued it for several more months but as a hostile takeover bid.
Upper Deck eventually withdrew its offer, complaining that Topps had impeded any reasonable efforts toward a merger. Meanwhile, a vote on the lower bid was delayed in the aftermath of Upper Deck's withdrawal, allowing management more time to lobby for shareholder support. The buyout was eventually approved in a special shareholders meeting by nearly two-thirds of the shares voting. The result was close, however, as the bloc voting for the deal was only a narrow majority of total shares outstanding, including those not voted (a requirement to complete the deal).
On October 12, 2007, Topps was acquired by Michael Eisner's Tornante Company and Madison Dearborn Partners. Under Eisner's direction, Topps began to expand into the entertainment and media business with plans for a Bazooka Joe
Bazooka Joe
Bazooka Joe is a comic strip character, featured on small comics included inside individually-wrapped pieces of Bazooka bubblegum. He wears a black eyepatch, lending him a distinctive appearance...
movie. Former television executive Staci Weiss began working with Tornante to develop projects based on Topps properties, including Garbage Pail Kids
Garbage Pail Kids
Garbage Pail Kids , "La Pandilla Basura" or "Basuritas" in Latin America, "Gang do Lixo" in Brazil, "Sgorbions" in Italy, "Les Crados" in France and "Die total kaputten Kids" in Germany) is a series of trading cards produced by the Topps Company, originally released in 1985 and designed to parody...
, Wacky Packages
Wacky Packages
Wacky Packages are a series of trading cards and stickers featuring parodies of North American consumer products. The cards were produced by the Topps Company beginning in 1967, usually in a sticker format. The original series sold for two years, and the concept proved popular enough that it has...
, Dinosaurs Attack!
Dinosaurs Attack!
Dinosaurs Attack! is a trading card series by Topps, released in 1988, and containing 55 cards and 11 sticker cards. The cards tells the story of dinosaurs transported through time into the present day through a freak accident and wreaking havoc on Earth...
, Mech Warrior and Attax.
Topps Europe Ltd
Topps has a European division, which is based in Milton KeynesMilton Keynes
Milton Keynes , sometimes abbreviated MK, is a large town in Buckinghamshire, in the south east of England, about north-west of London. It is the administrative centre of the Borough of Milton Keynes...
, UK. From this office products are launched across Europe, including Spain, France, Germany, Norway, and Italy. This division also co-ordinates products launches across the numerous other international markets including the Far East, Australia, and South Africa.
In 1995, The Topps Company Inc. completed its takeover of Merlin Publishing. Merlin’s official company name changed to Topps Europe Limited, however some of its products still carried the Merlin brand as it was easily recognized by consumers.
Topps Europe Limited continues to produce a wide and varied range of sports and entertainment collectables across Europe. Its range of products now includes stickers, albums, cards and binders, magazines, stationery and even temporary tattoos!
Topps Europe Ltd Products
In 1994, Topps (then known in Europe as Merlin) acquired the Premier League license allowing the company to exclusively publish the only official Premier League sticker and album collection in the UK. The initial success of the Premier League stickers and album collection was so great that it took even Merlin by surprise, with reprint after reprint being produced.Topps Europe Ltd has continued to launch hugely successful products across Europe. Some of the most successful licenses have included WWE, Pokémon, Doctor Who, High School Musical and SpongeBob. Premier League stickers and albums are now in their 18th year.
Match Attax
Match Attax
Topps Match Attax is a collectible card game published by Topps, based on the English Premier League.Launched in 2007, it has been the biggest selling collectible card game in the UK for the previous two years and has estimated sales totalling £32.2 million in the UK and Ireland...
, the official Premier League trading card game, is the biggest selling boys collectable in the UK two years running. Being sold across the globe in a number of countries, the collection also holds the title of the biggest selling sports collectable in the world. It is estimated that around 1.5 million children collect it in the UK, and 2.5 million children in the world.
In the spring of 2008, Topps acquired the exclusive rights to the DFL Deutsche Fussball Liga GmbH for trading cards and stickers until the Bundesliga Season 2010/11. Bundesliga Match Attax was launched in January 2009 and is now available in over 40,000 stockists. The collection is the first of its kind in Germany and has become one of the biggest selling collections in the country.
Entry into the baseball card market
In 1951, Topps produced its first baseball cards in two different sets known today as Red Backs and Blue Backs. Each set contained 52 cards, like a deck of playing cardPlaying card
A playing card is a piece of specially prepared heavy paper, thin cardboard, plastic-coated paper, cotton-paper blend, or thin plastic, marked with distinguishing motifs and used as one of a set for playing card games...
s, and in fact the cards could be used to play a game
Game
A game is structured playing, usually undertaken for enjoyment and sometimes used as an educational tool. Games are distinct from work, which is usually carried out for remuneration, and from art, which is more often an expression of aesthetic or ideological elements...
that would simulate the events of a baseball
Baseball
Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each. The aim is to score runs by hitting a thrown ball with a bat and touching a series of four bases arranged at the corners of a ninety-foot diamond...
game. Also like playing cards, the cards had rounded corners and were blank on one side, which was colored either red or blue (hence the names given to these sets). The other side featured the portrait of a player within a baseball diamond in the center, and in opposite corners a picture of a baseball together with the event for that card, such as "fly out
Out (baseball)
In baseball, an out occurs when the defensive, or fielding, team effects any of a number of different events, and the umpire rules a batter or baserunner out. When a player is called out, he is said to be retired...
" or "single
Single (baseball)
In baseball, a single is the most common type of base hit, accomplished through the act of a batter safely reaching first base by hitting a fair ball and getting to first base before a fielder puts him out...
".
Topps changed its approach in 1952, this time creating a much larger (407 total) set of baseball cards and packaging them with its signature product, bubblegum
Bubblegum
Bubblegum is a type of elastic chewing gum, designed to be blown out of the mouth as a bubble.-History:In 1928, Walter Diemer, an accountant for the Fleer Chewing Gum Company in Philadelphia, was experimenting with new gum recipes. One recipe was found to be less sticky than regular chewing gum,...
. The company also decided that its playing card model was too small (2 inches by 2-5/8 inches) and changed the dimensions to 2-3/4 inches by 3-5/8 inches with square corners. The cards now had a color portrait
Portrait
thumb|250px|right|Portrait of [[Thomas Jefferson]] by [[Rembrandt Peale]], 1805. [[New-York Historical Society]].A portrait is a painting, photograph, sculpture, or other artistic representation of a person, in which the face and its expression is predominant. The intent is to display the likeness,...
on one side, with statistical
Statistics
Statistics is the study of the collection, organization, analysis, and interpretation of data. It deals with all aspects of this, including the planning of data collection in terms of the design of surveys and experiments....
and biographical information on the other. This set became a landmark in the baseball card industry, and today the company considers this its first true baseball card set. Many of the oil paintings for the sets were rendered by artist Gerry Dvorak, who also worked as an animator for Famous Studios
Famous Studios
Famous Studios was the animation division of the film studio Paramount Pictures from 1942 to 1967. Famous was founded as a successor company to Fleischer Studios, after Paramount acquired the aforementioned studio and ousted its founders, Max and Dave Fleischer, in 1941...
. In 1957, Topps shrank the dimensions of its cards slightly, to 2-1/2 inches by 3-1/2 inches, setting a standard that remains the basic format for most sports cards produced in the United States. It was at this time Topps began to use color photographs in their set.
The cards were released in several series over the course of the baseball season, a practice Topps would continue with its baseball cards until 1974. However, the last series of each year did not sell as well, as the baseball season wore on and popular attention began to turn towards football
American football
American football is a sport played between two teams of eleven with the objective of scoring points by advancing the ball into the opposing team's end zone. Known in the United States simply as football, it may also be referred to informally as gridiron football. The ball can be advanced by...
. Thus cards from the last series are much scarcer and are typically more valuable (even commons) than earlier series of the same year. Topps was left with a substantial amount of surplus stock in 1952, which it largely disposed of by dumping many cards into the Atlantic
Atlantic Ocean
The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's oceanic divisions. With a total area of about , it covers approximately 20% of the Earth's surface and about 26% of its water surface area...
. In later years, Topps either printed series in smaller quantities late in the season or destroyed excess cards. As a result, cards with higher numbers from this period are rarer than low numbers in the same set, and collectors will pay significantly higher prices for them. The last series in 1952 started with card #311, which is Topps' first card of Mickey Mantle
Mickey Mantle
Mickey Charles Mantle was an American professional baseball player. Mantle is regarded by many to be the greatest switch hitter of all time, and one of the greatest players in baseball history. Mantle was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1974.Mantle was noted for his hitting...
, and remains the most valuable Topps card ever (and the most valuable post-1948 card). The 1952 Topps Mantle is often mistakenly referred to as Mickey's rookie card, but that honor belongs to his 1951 Bowman card (which is worth about a third of the 1952 Topps card).
The combination of baseball cards and bubblegum was popular among young boys, and given the mediocre quality of the gum, the cards quickly became the primary attraction. In fact, the gum eventually became a hindrance because it tended to stain the cards, thus impairing their value to collectors who wanted to keep them in pristine condition. It (along with the traditional gray cardboard) was finally dropped from baseball card packs in 1992, although Topps began its Heritage line, which included gum, in the year 2001.
Competition for player contracts
During this period, baseball card manufacturers generally obtained the rights to depict players on merchandise by signing individual players to contractContract
A contract is an agreement entered into by two parties or more with the intention of creating a legal obligation, which may have elements in writing. Contracts can be made orally. The remedy for breach of contract can be "damages" or compensation of money. In equity, the remedy can be specific...
s for the purpose. Topps first became active in this process through an agent called Players Enterprises in July 1950, in preparation for its first 1951 set. The later acquisition of rights to additional players allowed Topps to release its second series.
This promptly brought Topps into furious competition with Bowman Gum
Bowman Gum
Bowman Gum was a Philadelphia-based manufacturer of bubble gum and trading cards in the period surrounding World War II founded by Jacob Warren Bowman. Originally known as Gum, Inc., the company produced a series of cards known as the "Play Ball" sets each year from 1939 to 1941...
, another company producing baseball cards. Bowman had become the primary maker of baseball cards and driven out several competitors by signing its players to exclusive contracts. The language of these contracts focused particularly on the rights to sell cards with chewing gum
Chewing gum
Chewing gum is a type of gum traditionally made of chicle, a natural latex product, or synthetic rubber known as polyisobutylene. For economical and quality reasons, many modern chewing gums use rubber instead of chicle...
, which had already been established in the 1930s as a popular product to pair with baseball cards.
To avoid the language of Bowman's existing contracts, Topps sold its 1951 cards with caramel candy instead of gum. However, because Bowman had signed many players in 1950 to contracts for that year, plus a renewal option
Real option
Real options valuation, also often termed Real options analysis, applies option valuation techniques to capital budgeting decisions. A real option itself, is the right — but not the obligation — to undertake some business decision; typically the option to make, abandon, expand, or contract a...
for one year, Topps included in its own contracts the rights to sell cards with gum starting in 1952 (as it ultimately did). Topps also tried to establish exclusive rights through its contracts by having players agree not to grant similar rights to others, or renew existing contracts except where specifically noted in the contract.
Bowman responded by adding chewing gum "or confections" to the exclusivity language of its 1951 contracts, and also sued Topps in U.S. federal court
United States district court
The United States district courts are the general trial courts of the United States federal court system. Both civil and criminal cases are filed in the district court, which is a court of law, equity, and admiralty. There is a United States bankruptcy court associated with each United States...
. The lawsuit
Lawsuit
A lawsuit or "suit in law" is a civil action brought in a court of law in which a plaintiff, a party who claims to have incurred loss as a result of a defendant's actions, demands a legal or equitable remedy. The defendant is required to respond to the plaintiff's complaint...
alleged infringement on Bowman's trademark
Trademark
A trademark, trade mark, or trade-mark is a distinctive sign or indicator used by an individual, business organization, or other legal entity to identify that the products or services to consumers with which the trademark appears originate from a unique source, and to distinguish its products or...
s, unfair competition, and contractual interference. The court rejected Bowman's attempt to claim a trademark on the word "baseball" in connection with the sale of gum, and disposed of the unfair competition claim because Topps had made no attempt to pass its cards off as being made by Bowman. The contract issue proved more difficult because it turned on the dates when a given player signed contracts with each company, and whether the player's contract with one company had an exception for his contract with the other.
As the contract situation was sorted out, several Topps sets during these years had a few "missing" cards, where the numbering of the set skips several numbers because they had been assigned to players whose cards could not legally be distributed. The competition, both for consumer attention and player contracts, continued until 1956, when Topps bought out Bowman. This left Topps as the dominant producer of baseball cards for a number of years.
Consolidation of a monopoly
The next company to challenge Topps was FleerFleer
The Fleer Corporation, founded by Frank H. Fleer in 1885, was the first company to successfully manufacture bubblegum; it remained a family-owned enterprise until it was taken private in 1989....
, another gum manufacturer. Fleer signed star Ted Williams
Ted Williams
Theodore Samuel "Ted" Williams was an American professional baseball player and manager. He played his entire 21-year Major League Baseball career as the left fielder for the Boston Red Sox...
to an exclusive contract in 1959 and sold a set of cards oriented around him. Williams retired the next year, so Fleer began adding around him other mostly retired players in a Baseball Greats series, which was sold with gum. Two of these sets were produced before Fleer finally tried a 67-card set of currently active players in 1963. However, Topps held onto the rights of most players and the set was not particularly successful.
Stymied, Fleer turned its efforts to supporting an administrative complaint filed by the Federal Trade Commission
Federal Trade Commission
The Federal Trade Commission is an independent agency of the United States government, established in 1914 by the Federal Trade Commission Act...
, alleging that Topps was engaging in unfair competition through its aggregation of exclusive contracts. A hearing examiner ruled against Topps in 1965, but the Commission reversed this decision on appeal. The Commission concluded that because the contracts only covered the sale of cards with gum, constipation was still possible by selling his tight little bung
with other small, low-cost products. However, Fleer chose not to pursue such options and instead sold its remaining player contracts to Topps for $395,000 in 1966. The decision gave Topps an effective monopoly
Monopoly
A monopoly exists when a specific person or enterprise is the only supplier of a particular commodity...
of the baseball card market.
That same year, however, Topps faced an attempt to undermine its position from the nascent players' union
Trade union
A trade union, trades union or labor union is an organization of workers that have banded together to achieve common goals such as better working conditions. The trade union, through its leadership, bargains with the employer on behalf of union members and negotiates labour contracts with...
, the Major League Baseball Players Association
Major League Baseball Players Association
The Major League Baseball Players Association is the union of professional major-league baseball players.-History of MLBPA:The MLBPA was not the first attempt to unionize baseball players...
. Struggling to raise funds, the MLBPA discovered that it could generate significant income by pooling the publicity rights of its members and offering companies a group license
License
The verb license or grant licence means to give permission. The noun license or licence refers to that permission as well as to the document recording that permission.A license may be granted by a party to another party as an element of an agreement...
to use their images on various products. After initially putting players on Coca-Cola
Coca-Cola
Coca-Cola is a carbonated soft drink sold in stores, restaurants, and vending machines in more than 200 countries. It is produced by The Coca-Cola Company of Atlanta, Georgia, and is often referred to simply as Coke...
bottlecaps, the union concluded that the Topps contracts did not pay players adequately for their rights.
MLBPA executive director Marvin Miller
Marvin Miller
Marvin Julian Miller is a former executive director of the Major League Baseball Players Association , from 1966 to 1982. Under Miller's direction, the players' union was transformed into one of the strongest unions in the United States...
then approached Joel Shorin, the president of Topps, about renegotiating these contracts. At this time, Topps had every major league
Major League Baseball
Major League Baseball is the highest level of professional baseball in the United States and Canada, consisting of teams that play in the National League and the American League...
player under contract, generally for five years plus renewal options, so Shorin declined. After continued discussions went nowhere, the union before the 1968 season asked its members to stop signing renewals on these contracts, and offered Fleer the exclusive rights to market cards of most players (with gum) starting in 1973. Although Fleer declined the proposal, by the end of the year Topps had agreed to double its payments to each player from $125 to $250, and also to begin paying players a percentage of Topps's overall sales. The figure for individual player contracts has since increased to $500.
As a byproduct of this history, Topps continues to use individual player contracts as the basis for its baseball card sets today. This contrasts with other manufacturers, who all obtain group licenses from the MLBPA. The difference has occasionally affected whether specific players are included in particular sets. Players who decline to sign individual contracts will not have Topps cards even when the group licensing system allows other manufacturers to produce cards of the player, as happened with Alex Rodriguez
Alex Rodriguez
Alexander Emmanuel "Alex" Rodriguez is an American professional baseball third baseman with the New York Yankees of Major League Baseball. Known popularly by his nickname A-Rod, he previously played shortstop for the Seattle Mariners and the Texas Rangers.Rodriguez is considered one of the best...
early in his career. On the other hand, if a player opts out of group licensing, as Barry Bonds
Barry Bonds
Barry Lamar Bonds is an American former Major League Baseball outfielder. Bonds played from 1986 to 2007, for the Pittsburgh Pirates and San Francisco Giants. He is the son of former major league All-Star Bobby Bonds...
did in 2004, then manufacturers who depend on the MLBPA system will have no way of including him. Topps, however, can negotiate individually and was belatedly able to create a 2004 card of Bonds. In addition, Topps is the only manufacturer able to produce cards of players who worked as replacement players during the 1994 baseball strike, since they are barred from union membership and participation in the group licensing program.
The monopoly and its end
A semblance of competition returned to the baseball card market in the 1970s when Kellogg's began producing "3-D" cards and inserting them in boxes of breakfast cerealBreakfast cereal
A breakfast cereal is a food made from processed grains that is often, but not always, eaten with the first meal of the day. It is often eaten cold, usually mixed with milk , water, or yogurt, and sometimes fruit but sometimes eaten dry. Some cereals, such as oatmeal, may be served hot as porridge...
(originally Corn Flakes
Corn flakes
Corn flakes are a popular breakfast cereal originally manufactured by Kellogg's through the treatment of maize. A patent for the product was filed on May 31, 1895, and issued on April 14, 1896.-History:...
, later Raisin Bran
Raisin Bran
Raisin bran is a breakfast cereal manufactured by several companies under a variety of brand names, including Kellogg's Raisin Bran; General Mills' Total Raisin Bran, a variant by General Mills called Raisin Nut Bran; and Ralcorp's Post Raisin Bran.-History:Skinner's Raisin Bran was the first...
and other Kellogg's brands). The Kellogg's sets contained fewer cards than Topps sets, and the cards served as an incentive to buy the cereal rather than being the intended focus of the purchase, as tended to be the case for cards distributed with smaller items like candy or gum. Topps appears not to have considered the Kellogg's cards a threat and took no action to stop them.
The Topps monopoly on baseball cards was finally broken by a lawsuit that let Fleer and another company, Donruss
Donruss
Donruss, currently known as Panini America and owned by Panini Group, manufactures sports cards. The company started in the 1950s, producing confectionery, evolved into Donruss and started producing trading cards. During the 1960s and 1970s Donruss produced entertainment-themed trading cards...
, enter the market in 1981. Fleer and Donruss began making large, widely distributed sets to compete directly with Topps, packaged with gum. When the ruling was overturned on appeal in August 1981, Topps appeared to have regained its monopoly, but both of its competitors instead began packaging their cards with other baseball items – logo stickers from Fleer, and cardboard puzzle pieces from Donruss. Other manufacturers later followed, but Topps remains one of the leading brands in the baseball card hobby
Hobby
A hobby is a regular activity or interest that is undertaken for pleasure, typically done during one's leisure time.- Etymology :A hobby horse is a wooden or wickerwork toy made to be ridden just like a real horse...
. In response to the competition, Topps began regularly issuing additional "Traded" sets featuring players who had changed teams since the main set was issued, following up on an idea it had experimented with a few years earlier.
Topps in the modern baseball card industry
While "Traded" or "Update" sets were originally conceived to deal with players who changed teams, they became increasingly important for another reason. In order to fill out a 132-card set (the number of cards that fit on a single sheet of the uncut cardboard used in the production process), it would contain a number of rookieRookie
Rookie is a term for a person who is in his or her first year of play of their sport or has little or no professional experience. The term also has the more general meaning of anyone new to a profession, training or activity Rookie is a term for a person who is in his or her first year of play of...
players who had just reached the major leagues and not previously appeared on a card. They also included a few single cards of players who previously appeared in the regular set on a multi-player "prospects" card; one notable example is the 1982 Topps Traded Cal Ripken, Jr.
Cal Ripken, Jr.
Calvin Edwin "Cal" Ripken, Jr. , nicknamed "Iron Man", is a former Major League Baseball shortstop and third baseman. He played his entire 21-year baseball career for the Baltimore Orioles ....
. Since a "rookie card" is typically the most valuable for any given player, the companies now competed to be the first to produce a card of players who might be future stars. Increasingly, they also included highly touted minor league players who had yet to play in the major leagues. For example, Topps obtained a license to produce cards featuring the U.S. Olympic
Olympic Games
The Olympic Games is a major international event featuring summer and winter sports, in which thousands of athletes participate in a variety of competitions. The Olympic Games have come to be regarded as the world’s foremost sports competition where more than 200 nations participate...
baseball team and thus produced the first card of Mark McGwire
Mark McGwire
Mark David McGwire , nicknamed "Big Mac", is an American former professional baseball player who played his major league career with the Oakland Athletics and the St. Louis Cardinals. He is currently the hitting coach for the St...
prior to his promotion to the major league level, and one that would become quite valuable to collectors for a time. This card from the 1984 squad appeared in Topps's regular 1985 set, but by the next Olympic cycle the team's cards had been migrated to the "Traded" set. As a further step in this race, Topps resurrected its former competitor Bowman as a subsidiary brand in 1989, with Bowman sets similarly chosen to include a lot of young players with bright prospects.
Also beginning in 1989 with the entry of Upper Deck into the market, card companies began to develop higher-end cards using improved technology. Following Topps' example, other manufacturers now began to diversify their product lines into different sets, each catering to a different niche of the market. The initial Topps effort at producing a premium line of cards, in 1991, was called Stadium Club. Topps continued adding more sets and trying to distinguish them from each other, as did its competitors. The resulting glut of different baseball sets caused the MLBPA to take drastic measures as the market for them deteriorated. The union announced that for 2006, licenses would only be granted to Topps and Upper Deck, the number of different products would be limited, and players would not appear on cards before reaching the major leagues.
Although most of its products were distributed through retail stores and hobby shops, Topps also attempted to establish itself online, where a significant secondary market for sports cards was developing. Working in partnership with eBay
EBay
eBay Inc. is an American internet consumer-to-consumer corporation that manages eBay.com, an online auction and shopping website in which people and businesses buy and sell a broad variety of goods and services worldwide...
, Topps launched a new brand of sports cards called etopps
Etopps
eTopps is a revolutionary type of trading card originally launched by the Topps company in 2000.Each week a limited number of sports cards, called IPOs, are offered for sale exclusively through Etopps.com. This method of distribution contrasts with the traditional sale of sports cards through packs...
in December 2000. These cards are sold exclusively online through individual "IPOs" (or, "Initial Player Offering") in which the card is offered for usually a week at the IPO price. The quantity sold depends on how many people offer to buy, but is limited to a certain maximum. After a sale, the cards are held in a climate-controlled warehouse unless the buyer requests delivery, and the cards can be traded online without changing hands except in the virtual sense.
Topps also acquired ThePit.com, a startup company that earlier in 2000 had launched a site for online stock-market style card trading. The purchase was for $5.7 million cash in August 2001 after Topps had earlier committed to invest in a round of venture capital financing for the company. This undertaking was not very successful, however, and Topps unloaded the site on Naxcom in January 2006. The amount of the transaction was not disclosed, but Topps charged a $3.7 million after-tax loss on its books in connection with the sale.
Topps grabbed national attention early in 2007 when the new card of Yankees
New York Yankees
The New York Yankees are a professional baseball team based in the The Bronx, New York. They compete in Major League Baseball in the American League's East Division...
' shortstop Derek Jeter
Derek Jeter
Derek Sanderson Jeter is an American baseball shortstop who has played 17 years in Major League Baseball for the New York Yankees. A twelve-time All-Star and five-time World Series champion, Jeter's clubhouse presence, on-field leadership, hitting ability, and baserunning have made him a central...
was found to have been altered to include an image of Mickey Mantle standing in the dugout and President
President of the United States
The President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....
George W. Bush
George W. Bush
George Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....
walking through the stands.
On August 6, 2009 MLB announced that Topps would become the first official baseball card of the league in over thirty years. The first product to fall under the deal was the 2010 Topps Baseball Series 1. The deal gives Topps exclusivity beginning Jan. 1 for the use of MLB and club trademarks and logos on cards, stickers and some other products featuring major league players.
Card design
Although Topps did not invent the concept of baseball cards, its dominance in the field basically allowed the company to define people's expectations of what a baseball card would look like. In addition to establishing a standard size, Topps developed various design elements that are considered typical of baseball cards. Some of these were the company's own innovations, while some were ideas borrowed from others that Topps helped popularize.Use of statistics
One of the features that contributed significantly to Topps' success beginning with the 1952 set was providing player statistics. At the time, complete and reliable baseball statisticsBaseball statistics
Statistics play an important role in summarizing baseball performance and evaluating players in the sport.Since the flow of a baseball game has natural breaks to it, and normally players act individually rather than performing in clusters, the sport lends itself to easy record-keeping and statistics...
for all players were not widely available, so Topps actually compiled the information itself from published box scores
Box score (baseball)
In baseball, the statistical summary of a game is reported in a box score. An abbreviated version of the box score, duplicated from the field scoreboard, is the line score...
. While baseball cards themselves had been around for years, including statistics was a relative novelty that fascinated many collectors. Those who played with baseball cards could study the numbers and use them as the basis for comparing players, trading cards with friends, or playing imaginary baseball games. It also had some pedagogical benefit by encouraging youngsters to take an interest in the underlying mathematics
Mathematics
Mathematics is the study of quantity, space, structure, and change. Mathematicians seek out patterns and formulate new conjectures. Mathematicians resolve the truth or falsity of conjectures by mathematical proofs, which are arguments sufficient to convince other mathematicians of their validity...
.
The cards originally had one line for statistics from the most recent year (i.e. the 1951 season for cards in the 1952 set) and another with the player's lifetime totals. Bowman promptly imitated this by putting statistics on its own cards where it had previously only had biographical information. For the first time in 1957, Topps put full year-by-year statistics for the player's entire career on the back of the card. Over the next few years, Topps alternated between this format and merely showing the past season plus career totals. The practice of showing complete career statistics became permanent in 1963, except for one year, 1971, when Topps sacrificed the full statistics in order to put a player photo on the back of the card as well.
Artwork and photography
Although the 1971 set was an aborted experiment in terms of putting photos on card backs (they would not return until 1992), that year was also a landmark in terms of baseball card photographyPhotography
Photography is the art, science and practice of creating durable images by recording light or other electromagnetic radiation, either electronically by means of an image sensor or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film...
, as Topps for the first time included cards showing color photographs from actual games. The cards themselves had been in color from the beginning, though for the first few years this was done by using artist's portraits of players rather than actual photographs and until 1971, Topps used mostly portrait or posed shots. The 1971 set is also known for its jet black borders, which because they chip so easily, makes it much more difficult to find top grade cards for 1971. The black borders would return for Topps' 1985 football set and 2007 baseball set.
After starting out with simple portraits, in 1954 Topps put two pictures on the front of the card – a hand-tinted 'color' close-up photo of the player's head, and the other a black-and-white full-length pose. The same basic format was used in 1955, this time with the full-length photo also hand-tinted. For 1956, the close-up tinted photo was placed against a tinted full-background 'game-action' photo of the player. The close-up head shots of some individual players were reused each year.
From 1957 on, virtually all cards were posed photographs, either as a head shot or together with a typical piece of equipment like a bat
Baseball bat
A baseball bat is a smooth wooden or metal club used in the game of baseball to hit the ball after the ball is thrown by the pitcher. It is no more than 2.75 inches in diameter at the thickest part and no more than 42 inches in length. It typically weighs no more than 33 ounces , but it...
or glove
Baseball glove
A baseball glove or mitt is a large leather glove that baseball players on the defending team are allowed to wear to assist them in catching and fielding balls hit by a batter, or thrown by a teammate.-History:...
. If using such a prop, the player might pose in a position as if he were in the act of batting
Batting (baseball)
In baseball, batting is the act of facing the opposing pitcher and trying to produce offense for one's team. A batter or hitter is a person whose turn it is to face the pitcher...
, pitching
Pitch (baseball)
In baseball, a pitch is the act of throwing a baseball toward home plate to start a play. The term comes from the Knickerbocker Rules. Originally, the ball had to be literally "pitched" underhand, as with pitching horseshoes. Overhand throwing was not allowed until 1884.The biomechanics of...
, or fielding
Fielding
Fielding may refer to:* Fielding , the action of fielders collecting the ball in cricket* The action of fielders collecting the ball at any of the nine baseball positions* Fielding, Saskatchewan, Canada* Fielding, Utah, United States...
. Photographs did not appear in sharp focus and natural color until 1962. However, that year also saw problems with the print quality in the second series, which lacked the right proportion of ink
Ink
Ink is a liquid or paste that contains pigments and/or dyes and is used to color a surface to produce an image, text, or design. Ink is used for drawing and/or writing with a pen, brush, or quill...
and thus gave the photographs a distinctly greenish tint. The affected series of cards was then reprinted, and several players were actually shown in different poses in the reprinting. Although Topps had produced error card
Error card
In the trading card collecting hobby, an error card is a card that shows incorrect information or some other unintended flaw. It can contain a mistake, such as a misspelling or a photo of someone other than the athlete named on the card...
s and variations before, this was its largest single production glitch.
In the absence of full-color action photography, Topps still occasionally used artwork to depict action on a handful of cards. Starting in 1960 a few cards showed true game action, but the photographs were either in black-and-white
Black-and-white
Black-and-white, often abbreviated B/W or B&W, is a term referring to a number of monochrome forms in visual arts.Black-and-white as a description is also something of a misnomer, for in addition to black and white, most of these media included varying shades of gray...
or hand-tinted color. These cards were primarily highlights from the World Series
World Series
The World Series is the annual championship series of Major League Baseball, played between the American League and National League champions since 1903. The winner of the World Series championship is determined through a best-of-seven playoff and awarded the Commissioner's Trophy...
(in addition to basic cards of individual players, Topps sets commonly include cards for special themes—the 1974 tribute to Hank Aaron as he was about to break Babe Ruth
Babe Ruth
George Herman Ruth, Jr. , best known as "Babe" Ruth and nicknamed "the Bambino" and "the Sultan of Swat", was an American Major League baseball player from 1914–1935...
's career home run record is one example). The 1972 set finally included color photographs, which were used for special "In Action" cards of selected star players. Thereafter, Topps began simply mixing game photography with posed shots in its sets.
When used for the cards of individual players, some of the early action photography had awkward results. The photos were sometimes out of focus or included several players, making it difficult to pick out the player who was supposed to be featured on the card. In a few cases, a misidentification meant that the player didn't even appear in the picture. These problems diminished as Topps' selection of photographs gradually improved.
Before statistics, biographical information, and commentary became the dominant element on the backs of cards, Topps also featured artwork there. This primarily involved using various types of cartoons drawn by its stable of artists. These appeared on card backs as late as 1982, but gradually declined in the prominence of their placement and the proportion of cards on which they appeared. In 1993, Topps finally managed again to incorporate a player photo on the back as well as the front of the card, after some competitors had been doing so for a number of years.
Coping with updated developments
The pictures and information on baseball cards sold during one season came primarily from earlier seasons, so Topps used various tactics to give its cards a greater sense of staying current with the times. Before coming up with the idea of a "Traded" set, the company still tried to produce cards of players with their new team if they changed teams in the offseason. This was sometimes accomplished by showing the player without any team cap, or by airbrushAirbrush
An airbrush is a small, air-operated tool that sprays various media including ink and dye, but most often paint by a process of nebulization. Spray guns developed from the airbrush and are still considered a type of airbrush.-History:...
ing out elements of the former team's logo on his uniform. Cards for rookies could also be prepared by airbrushing over their minor-league uniforms in photos.
In one case, Topps even got too far in front of events, as in 1974 it showed a number of players as being with the "Washington Nat'l Lea." franchise, due to expectations that the San Diego Padres
San Diego Padres
The San Diego Padres are a Major League Baseball team based in San Diego, California. They play in the National League Western Division. Founded in 1969, the Padres have won the National League Pennant twice, in 1984 and 1998, losing in the World Series both times...
would relocate to the vacant Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
market. The team designation was the only change, as no new nickname for the franchise had been selected. When the move failed to materialize, Topps had to replace these with cards showing the players still as Padres.
On rare occasions, Topps has issued special cards for players who had either died or had been injured. The 1959 set had card 550 as "Symbol Of Courage - Roy Campanella
Roy Campanella
Roy Campanella , nicknamed "Campy", was an American baseball player, primarily at the position of catcher, in the Negro leagues and Major League Baseball...
", with a color photo of the paralyzed former Dodger in his wheelchair and a black-and-white
Black-and-white
Black-and-white, often abbreviated B/W or B&W, is a term referring to a number of monochrome forms in visual arts.Black-and-white as a description is also something of a misnomer, for in addition to black and white, most of these media included varying shades of gray...
photo of him in uniform inserted to the upper left. The 1964 set issued cards for two recently deceased players: Ken Hubbs
Ken Hubbs
Kenneth Douglass Hubbs was an American second baseman who played from to for the Chicago Cubs in the National League. He was killed in a plane crash near Provo, Utah prior to the 1964 season....
of the Cubs with a different "In Memoriam" front design compared to standard cards, and Colts pitcher Jim Umbricht
Jim Umbricht
James Umbricht was an American Major League Baseball right-handed relief pitcher. He was born in Chicago, Illinois, and attended the University of Georgia. He pitched for the Pittsburgh Pirates and Houston Colt .45s . During his 5-year baseball career, Umbricht compiled 9 wins, 133 strikeouts,...
's regular card with a special note on the back about his April 1964 death from cancer. In October 2006, Topps was prepping for its annual updated/traded card release, which featured Cory Lidle
Cory Lidle
Cory Fulton Lidle was an Americanright-handed baseball pitcher who spent nine seasons in the major leagues with seven different teams. His twin brother Kevin Lidle also played baseball, as a catcher for several minor league teams...
in a Yankees uniform. After Lidle's tragic death, the cards were pulled and subsequently released with "In Memoriam" on its front.
Football cards
In addition to baseball, Topps also produced cards for American footballAmerican football
American football is a sport played between two teams of eleven with the objective of scoring points by advancing the ball into the opposing team's end zone. Known in the United States simply as football, it may also be referred to informally as gridiron football. The ball can be advanced by...
in 1951, which are known as the Magic set. For football cards Bowman dominated the field, and Topps did not try again until 1955, when it released an All-American set with a mix of active players and retired stars. After buying out Bowman, Topps took over the market the following year.
Since then, Topps has sold football cards every season. However, the emergence of the American Football League
American Football League
The American Football League was a major American Professional Football league that operated from 1960 until 1969, when the established National Football League merged with it. The upstart AFL operated in direct competition with the more established NFL throughout its existence...
in 1960 to compete with the established National Football League
National Football League
The National Football League is the highest level of professional American football in the United States, and is considered the top professional American football league in the world. It was formed by eleven teams in 1920 as the American Professional Football Association, with the league changing...
also allowed Topps' competitors, beginning with Fleer, to make inroads. Fleer produced a set for the AFL in 1960, then featured both leagues for one year before focusing on the AFL again. Philadelphia Gum
Philadelphia Gum
The Philadelphia Chewing Gum Company was an American candy, chewing gum, and confectionery company.The company was established in 1948 in Havertown, Pennsylvania, by Edward P. Fenimore . His son Edward L...
then secured the NFL rights for 1964, forcing Topps to go for the AFL and leaving Fleer with no product in either baseball or football.
Although more competitive for a time, the football card market was never as lucrative, so the other companies did not fight as hard over it. After the AFL-NFL Merger
AFL-NFL Merger
The AFL–NFL merger of 1970 was the merger of the two major professional American football leagues in the United States at the time: the National Football League and the American Football League...
was agreed to, Topps became the only major football card manufacturer beginning in 1968. In spite of the lack of competition, or perhaps to preempt it, Topps also created two sets of cards for the short-lived United States Football League
United States Football League
The United States Football League was an American football league which was in active operation from 1983 to 1987. It played a spring/summer schedule in its first three seasons and a traditional autumn/winter schedule was set to commence before league operations ceased.The USFL was conceived in...
in the 1980s. Many NFL legends had their first ever cards produced in the USFL sets. These players include Steve Young, Jim Kelly
Jim Kelly
James Edward Kelly is a former American football quarterback in the NFL for the Buffalo Bills and the USFL's Houston Gamblers....
, and Reggie White
Reggie White
Reginald Howard "Reggie" White was a professional American football player. He played 15 seasons as a defensive end in the National Football League for the Philadelphia Eagles, Green Bay Packers and Carolina Panthers, becoming one of the most decorated players in NFL history...
. This resulted in a controversy when these players debuted in the NFL. Many wondered if the USFL cards should be considered rookie cards because the league did not exist anymore. The situation continued until growth in the sports card market generally prompted two new companies, Pro Set and Score, to start making football cards in 1989.
Throughout the 1970s until 1982, Topps did not have the rights to reproduce the actual team logos on the helmets and uniforms of the players; curiously, these could be found on the Fleer sets of the same era, but Fleer could not name specific player names. As a result, helmet logos for these teams were airbrushed out on a routine basis.
Trading cards for other sports
Topps also makes cards for other major American professional sports. After football, its next venture was into ice hockeyIce hockey
Ice hockey, often referred to as hockey, is a team sport played on ice, in which skaters use wooden or composite sticks to shoot a hard rubber puck into their opponent's net. The game is played between two teams of six players each. Five members of each team skate up and down the ice trying to take...
, with a 1954 set featuring players from the four National Hockey League
National Hockey League
The National Hockey League is an unincorporated not-for-profit association which operates a major professional ice hockey league of 30 franchised member clubs, of which 7 are currently located in Canada and 23 in the United States...
franchises located in the U.S. at the time—Boston Bruins
Boston Bruins
The Boston Bruins are a professional ice hockey team based in Boston, Massachusetts, USA. They are members of the Northeast Division of the Eastern Conference of the National Hockey League . The team has been in existence since 1924, and is the league's third-oldest team and its oldest in the...
, Chicago Blackhawks
Chicago Blackhawks
The Chicago Blackhawks are a professional ice hockey team based in Chicago, Illinois. They are members of the Central Division of the Western Conference of the National Hockey League . They have won four Stanley Cup championships since their founding in 1926, most recently coming in 2009-10...
, Detroit Red Wings
Detroit Red Wings
The Detroit Red Wings are a professional ice hockey team based in Detroit, Michigan. They are members of the Central Division of the Western Conference of the National Hockey League , and are one of the Original Six teams of the NHL, along with the Toronto Maple Leafs, Montreal Canadiens, New York...
and New York Rangers
New York Rangers
The New York Rangers are a professional ice hockey team based in the borough of Manhattan in New York, New York, USA. They are members of the Atlantic Division of the Eastern Conference of the National Hockey League . Playing their home games at Madison Square Garden, the Rangers are one of the...
.
In 1958, O-Pee-Chee
O-Pee-Chee
The O-Pee-Chee Company, Ltd. was a 20th-century Canadian confectionery company that produced candy until the mid 1990s. The company, based in London, Ontario, was originally owned by the McDermid family . The company was later owned by Frank Leahy and then, sold to his son in law, Gary Koreen...
Company of London, Canada entered into an agreement with Topps to produce NHL cards (the 1957-58 series) and Canadian football cards (the 1958 series). O-Pee-Chee then started printing its own hockey and football cards in 1961. Similarly, the Topps Company struck agreements with Amalgamated and British Confectionery in the United Kingdom and Scanlen's in Australia.
In 1967, with the major expansion of six new NHL teams to the United States, the Topps Company produced a new hockey card set that paralleled the 1966-67 O-Pee-Chee hockey design (the basic television design was in fact first used for 1966 Topps American football series). Starting in 1968-69, the Topps Company started printing an annual Topps hockey set which was similar to the annual O-Pee-Chee hockey set. The Topps and O-Pee-Chee hockey sets shared a similar design from 1968-69 to 1981-82 and from 1984-85 to 1991-92.
Topps first sold cards for basketball
Basketball
Basketball is a team sport in which two teams of five players try to score points by throwing or "shooting" a ball through the top of a basketball hoop while following a set of rules...
in 1957, but stopped after one season. It started again in 1969 and continued until 1982, then abandoned the market for another decade, missing out on printing the prized rookie cards of Michael Jordan
Michael Jordan
Michael Jeffrey Jordan is a former American professional basketball player, active entrepreneur, and majority owner of the Charlotte Bobcats...
and other mid- and late-80s National Basketball Association
National Basketball Association
The National Basketball Association is the pre-eminent men's professional basketball league in North America. It consists of thirty franchised member clubs, of which twenty-nine are located in the United States and one in Canada...
stars. Topps finally returned to basketball cards in 1992, several years after its competitors. This would be perfect timing because 1992 was the rookie year of Shaquille O'Neal
Shaquille O'Neal
Shaquille Rashaun O'Neal , nicknamed "Shaq" , is a former American professional basketball player. Standing tall and weighing , he was one of the heaviest players ever to play in the NBA...
.
In the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
, where football stickers have been popular for roughly the same time period as trading cards, Topps acquired the old Amalgamated and British Confectionery firm in 1974, bringing over its production methods and card style. Under its Merlin brand, it has the licence to produce stickers for the Premier League and the national team
England national football team
The England national football team represents England in association football and is controlled by the Football Association, the governing body for football in England. England is the joint oldest national football team in the world, alongside Scotland, whom they played in the world's first...
. Its main competition is the Italian firm Panini. Topps make 'Topps Premier League' stickers and 'Match Attax
Match Attax
Topps Match Attax is a collectible card game published by Topps, based on the English Premier League.Launched in 2007, it has been the biggest selling collectible card game in the UK for the previous two years and has estimated sales totalling £32.2 million in the UK and Ireland...
' Trading card game.
Recently, Topps and Zuffa, LLC have signed an exclusive agreement to produce Mixed Martial Arts
Mixed martial arts
Mixed Martial Arts is a full contact combat sport that allows the use of both striking and grappling techniques, both standing and on the ground, including boxing, wrestling, Brazilian jiu-jitsu, muay Thai, kickboxing, karate, judo and other styles. The roots of modern mixed martial arts can be...
trading cards. Among the included cards are current and former athletes from the Ultimate Fighting Championship. The cards are scheduled to be released in Early 2009.
In Australia, Topps has produced Cricket Cards with the ACB for season 2000–01 and 2001–02. As well and AFL Chipz much like the NBA poker style chipz.
Non-sports products
Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In
Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In is an American sketch comedy television program which ran for 140 episodes from January 22, 1968, to May 14, 1973. It was hosted by comedians Dan Rowan and Dick Martin and was broadcast over NBC...
), book covers (Batty Bookcovers) and toys (Flying Things), plus offbeat packaging (Garbage Candy). More recently, the company published comic book
Comic book
A comic book or comicbook is a magazine made up of comics, narrative artwork in the form of separate panels that represent individual scenes, often accompanied by dialog as well as including...
s and games.
Candy and confectionery items
The longest-lived Topps product line remains Bazooka bubblegumBazooka (chewing gum)
Bazooka is a brand of bubble gum.It was first marketed shortly after World War II in the U.S. by the Topps Company of Brooklyn, New York. The gum was packaged in a patriotic red, white, and blue color scheme. Beginning in 1953, Topps changed the packaging to include small comic strips with the gum,...
, small pieces of gum in patriotic red, white, and blue packaging. Bazooka was introduced in 1947 as a bar of gum that sold for five cents. Unlike the gum sold with baseball cards, it was of better quality and capable of selling on its own merit. In 1953, Topps began selling smaller penny pieces with the Bazooka Joe
Bazooka Joe
Bazooka Joe is a comic strip character, featured on small comics included inside individually-wrapped pieces of Bazooka bubblegum. He wears a black eyepatch, lending him a distinctive appearance...
comic strip on the wrapper as an added attraction.
Even though baseball cards became the company's primary focus during this period, Topps still developed a variety of candy items. For quite a few years, the company stuck within familiar confines, and virtually all of these products involved gum in some way. Sales declined significantly in the 1970s, however, when this relatively hard gum was challenged by Bubble Yum
Bubble Yum
Bubble Yum is a brand of bubble gum marketed by The Hershey Company.Introduced in 1975 by LifeSavers, the bubble gum was the first soft bubble gum created....
, a new, softer form of bubblegum from Life Savers
Life Savers
Life Savers is an American brand of ring-shaped mints and artificially fruit-flavored hard candy. The candy is known for its distinctive packaging, coming in aluminum foil rolls....
.
In recent years, Topps has added more candy items without gum. One particular focus has been lollipop
Lollipop
A lollipop, pop, lolly, sucker, or sticky-pop is a type of confectionery consisting mainly of hardened, flavored sucrose with corn syrup mounted on a stick and intended for sucking or licking. They are available in many flavors and shapes.- Types :Lollipops are available in a number of colors and...
s, such as Ring Pops. However, Topps has complained that increasing public attention to childhood nutrition
Nutrition
Nutrition is the provision, to cells and organisms, of the materials necessary to support life. Many common health problems can be prevented or alleviated with a healthy diet....
undercuts its candy sales. Under pressure by shareholders, the company considered selling off its confectionery business in 2005, but was unable to find a buyer to meet its price and decided to cut management expenses instead.
Other brands include Push Pop, Baby Bottle Pop, and Juicy Drop Pop.
Non-sports trading cards
As its sports products relied more on photography, Topps redirected its artistic efforts toward non-sports trading cards, on themes inspired by popular culturePopular culture
Popular culture is the totality of ideas, perspectives, attitudes, memes, images and other phenomena that are deemed preferred per an informal consensus within the mainstream of a given culture, especially Western culture of the early to mid 20th century and the emerging global mainstream of the...
. For example, the Space Race
Space Race
The Space Race was a mid-to-late 20th century competition between the Soviet Union and the United States for supremacy in space exploration. Between 1957 and 1975, Cold War rivalry between the two nations focused on attaining firsts in space exploration, which were seen as necessary for national...
prompted a set of "Space Cards" in 1958. Topps has continued to create collectible cards and stickers on a variety of subjects, often targeting the same adolescent male audience as its baseball cards. In particular, these have covered movies, television series, and other cultural phenomena ranging from The Beatles
The Beatles
The Beatles were an English rock band, active throughout the 1960s and one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music. Formed in Liverpool, by 1962 the group consisted of John Lennon , Paul McCartney , George Harrison and Ringo Starr...
to the life story of John F. Kennedy
John F. Kennedy
John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy , often referred to by his initials JFK, was the 35th President of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963....
. The many Star Wars
Star Wars Trading Cards
A Star Wars trading card is a nonsport, collectible trading card, sticker, wrapper, or cap based on the Star Wars movies and television shows. Both screen stills and original art are featured in the cards and other items. An avid collecting and trading community of these cards and sets exists...
card series have done well, with a few exceptions.
Many Topps artists came from the world of comics
Comics
Comics denotes a hybrid medium having verbal side of its vocabulary tightly tied to its visual side in order to convey narrative or information only, the latter in case of non-fiction comics, seeking synergy by using both visual and verbal side in...
and continued to work in that field as well. The shift from sports to other topics better suited the creative instincts of the artists and coincided with turmoil in the comic book industry over regulation by the Comics Code Authority
Comics Code Authority
The Comics Code Authority was a body created as part of the Comics Magazine Association of America, as a tool for the comics-publishing industry to self-regulate the content of comic books in the United States. Member publishers submitted comic books to the CCA, which screened them for adherence to...
. Beginning at Topps when he was a teenager, Art Spiegelman
Art Spiegelman
Art Spiegelman is an American comics artist, editor, and advocate for the medium of comics, best known for his Pulitzer Prize-winning comic book memoir, Maus. His works are published with his name in lowercase: art spiegelman.-Biography:Spiegelman was born in Stockholm, Sweden, to Polish Jews...
was the company's main staff cartoonist for more than 20 years. Other staffers in Topps' Product Development Department at various times included Larry Riley, Mark Newgarden
Mark Newgarden
Mark Newgarden is an American underground cartoonist. His work has appeared widely, and his influential shape-shifting weekly feature Newgarden, which appeared in alternative weekly newspapers like New York Press, created a cult following for the artist.Newgarden's work has appeared in a diverse...
, Bhob Stewart
Bhob Stewart
Bhob Stewart is an American writer, editor, artist and film maker who has written for a variety of publications over a span of five decades. His articles and reviews have appeared in TV Guide, Publishers Weekly and other publications, along with online contributions to Allmovie, the Collecting...
and Rick Varesi. Topps' creative directors of Product Development, Woody Gelman and Len Brown, gave freelance assignments to leading comic book illustrators, such as Jack Davis
Jack Davis (cartoonist)
Jack Davis is an American cartoonist and illustrator, known for his advertising art, magazine covers, film posters, record album art and numerous comic book stories...
, Wally Wood
Wally Wood
Wallace Allan Wood was an American comic book writer, artist and independent publisher, best known for his work in EC Comics and Mad. He was one of Mads founding cartoonists in 1952. Although much of his early professional artwork is signed Wallace Wood, he became known as Wally Wood, a name he...
and Bob Powell
Bob Powell (comics)
Bob Powell né Stanislav Robert Pawlowski was an American comic book artist known for his work during the 1930-40s Golden Age of comic books, including on the features "Sheena, Queen of the Jungle" and "Mr. Mystic". He received a belated credit in 1999 for co-writing the debut of the popular...
. Spiegelman, Gelman and Brown also hired freelance artists from the underground comix
Underground comix
Underground comix are small press or self-published comic books which are often socially relevant or satirical in nature. They differ from mainstream comics in depicting content forbidden to mainstream publications by the Comics Code Authority, including explicit drug use, sexuality and violence...
movement, including Bill Griffith and Kim Deitch
Kim Deitch
-Sources:* at Lambiek's Comiclopedia-External links:* Ford, Jeffrey. *Heller, Steven. **...
and Robert Crumb
Robert Crumb
Robert Dennis Crumb —known as Robert Crumb and R. Crumb—is an American artist, illustrator, and musician recognized for the distinctive style of his drawings and his critical, satirical, subversive view of the American mainstream.Crumb was a founder of the underground comix movement and is regarded...
. Jay Lynch
Jay Lynch
Jay Lynch is an American cartoonist who played a key role in the underground comix movement with his Bijou Funnies and other titles. His work is sometimes signed Jayzey Lynch. He has contributed to Mad, and in 2008, he expanded into the children's book field.-Early life and career:Born in Orange,...
did extensive cartooning for Topps over several decades.
Drawing on their previous work, these artists were adept at things like mixing humor and horror
Horror fiction
Horror fiction also Horror fantasy is a philosophy of literature, which is intended to, or has the capacity to frighten its readers, inducing feelings of horror and terror. It creates an eerie atmosphere. Horror can be either supernatural or non-supernatural...
, as with the Funny Monsters cards in 1959. The 1962 Mars Attacks
Mars Attacks
Mars Attacks is a science fiction trading card series released in 1962. The cards feature artwork by science-fiction artist Wallace Wood and tell the story of the invasion of Earth by cruel, hideous Martians. The cards depicted futuristic battle scenes and bizarre methods of Martian attack, torture...
cards, sketched by Wood and Powell and painted by Norman Saunders
Norman Saunders
Norman Blaine Saunders was a prolific commercial artist who produced paintings for pulp magazines, paperbacks, men's adventure magazines, comic books and trading cards...
, later inspired a Tim Burton
Tim Burton
Timothy William "Tim" Burton is an American film director, film producer, writer and artist. He is famous for dark, quirky-themed movies such as Beetlejuice, Edward Scissorhands, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Ed Wood, Sleepy Hollow, Corpse Bride and Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet...
movie. A tie-in with the Mars Attacks film led to a 1994 card series, a new 100-card "archives" set reprinting the 55 original cards, plus 45 new cards from several different artists, including Norm Saunders' daughter, Zina Saunders
Zina Saunders
Zina Saunders is a Manhattan-based artist, writer, animator and educator. In 2010, for Mother Jones, she began creating regular weekly animations...
.
Among Topps' most notable achievements in the area of satire and parody
Parody
A parody , in current usage, is an imitative work created to mock, comment on, or trivialise an original work, its subject, author, style, or some other target, by means of humorous, satiric or ironic imitation...
have been Wacky Packages
Wacky Packages
Wacky Packages are a series of trading cards and stickers featuring parodies of North American consumer products. The cards were produced by the Topps Company beginning in 1967, usually in a sticker format. The original series sold for two years, and the concept proved popular enough that it has...
, a takeoff on various household consumer products, and Garbage Pail Kids
Garbage Pail Kids
Garbage Pail Kids , "La Pandilla Basura" or "Basuritas" in Latin America, "Gang do Lixo" in Brazil, "Sgorbions" in Italy, "Les Crados" in France and "Die total kaputten Kids" in Germany) is a series of trading cards produced by the Topps Company, originally released in 1985 and designed to parody...
, a parody of the Cabbage Patch Kids
Cabbage Patch Kids
Cabbage Patch Kids is a line of dolls created by American art student Xavier Roberts in 1978. It was originally called "Little People". The original dolls were all cloth and sold at local craft shows, then later at Babyland General Hospital in Cleveland, Georgia...
dolls. Another popular series was the Civil War News
Civil War News
Civil War News was a set of collectible trading cards issued in the early 1960s by Topps. The set featured the colorful artwork of Norman Saunders, as well as three other artists, and was characterized by vivid colors; graphic depictions of violence, death, and blood and exaggerations of warfare...
set, also with Norman Saunders' artwork.
Although baseball cards have been Topps' most consistently profitable item, certain fads have occasionally produced spikes in popularity for non-sports items. For a period beginning in 1973, the Wacky Packages stickers managed to outsell Topps baseball cards, becoming the first product to do so since the company's early days as purely a gum and candy maker. Pokémon
Pokémon
is a media franchise published and owned by the video game company Nintendo and created by Satoshi Tajiri in 1996. Originally released as a pair of interlinkable Game Boy role-playing video games developed by Game Freak, Pokémon has since become the second most successful and lucrative video...
cards would accomplish the same feat for a few years starting in 1999. In the absence of new fads to capitalize on, Topps has come under pressure from stock analysts, since its sports card business is more stable and has less growth potential.
Disney Channel
Topps worked together with the Disney ChannelDisney Channel
Disney Channel is an American basic cable and satellite television network, owned by the Disney-ABC Television Group division of The Walt Disney Company. It is under the direction of Disney-ABC Television Group President Anne Sweeney. The channel's headquarters is located on West Alameda Ave. in...
to create trading cards of High School Musical
High School Musical
High School Musical is a 2006 American television film, first in the High School Musical film franchise. Upon its release on January 20, 2006, it became the most successful film that Disney Channel Original Movie ever produced, with a television sequel High School Musical 2 released in 2007 and...
, High School Musical 2, High School Musical 3, and Hannah Montana
Hannah Montana
Hannah Montana is an American television series, which debuted on March 24, 2006 on the Disney Channel. The series focuses on a girl who lives a double life as an average teenage school girl named Miley Stewart by day and a famous pop singer named Hannah Montana by night, concealing her real...
.
Comic books
Drawing on its established connections with artists, in 1993 Topps created a division of the company to publish comic books. Known as Topps Comics, its early efforts included several concepts from retired industry legend Jack Kirby
Jack Kirby
Jack Kirby , born Jacob Kurtzberg, was an American comic book artist, writer and editor regarded by historians and fans as one of the major innovators and most influential creators in the comic book medium....
, known collectively as the "Kirbyverse". Topps Comics particularly specialized in licensed titles with tie-ins to movies or television series, though it also published a few original series. Its longest-running and best-selling title was The X-Files
The X-Files
The X-Files is an American science fiction television series and a part of The X-Files franchise, created by screenwriter Chris Carter. The program originally aired from to . The show was a hit for the Fox network, and its characters and slogans became popular culture touchstones in the 1990s...
, based on the Fox TV show.
These comic books featured former Marvel Comics
Marvel Comics
Marvel Worldwide, Inc., commonly referred to as Marvel Comics and formerly Marvel Publishing, Inc. and Marvel Comics Group, is an American company that publishes comic books and related media...
editor Jim Salicrup
Jim Salicrup
Jim Salicrup is an American comic book editor, known for his tenures at Marvel Comics and Topps Comics. At Marvel, where he worked for twenty years, he edited books such as The Uncanny X-Men, Fantastic Four, Avengers and various Spider-Man titles...
as its editor-in-chief. Some of the more famous titles included The X-Files
The X-Files
The X-Files is an American science fiction television series and a part of The X-Files franchise, created by screenwriter Chris Carter. The program originally aired from to . The show was a hit for the Fox network, and its characters and slogans became popular culture touchstones in the 1990s...
, Lone Ranger and Tonto
Tonto
Tonto may mean:* Tonto, a band of Apache native Americans.* Tonto, the fictional sidekick to the Lone Ranger.* "Tonto", a song by the American math rock band Battles, from their album Mirrored.** "Tonto+", the EP centered around said song....
by Timothy Truman
Timothy Truman
Timothy Truman is an American writer, artist and musician. He is best known for his stories and Wild West-style comic book art, and in particular, for his work on Grimjack , Scout, and the reinvention of Jonah Hex, with Joe R. Lansdale...
, Xena
Xena
Xena is a fictional character from Robert Tapert's Xena: Warrior Princess franchise. She first appeared in the 1995–1999 television series Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, before going on to appear in Xena: Warrior Princess TV show and subsequent comic book of the same name...
, Mars Attacks
Mars Attacks
Mars Attacks is a science fiction trading card series released in 1962. The cards feature artwork by science-fiction artist Wallace Wood and tell the story of the invasion of Earth by cruel, hideous Martians. The cards depicted futuristic battle scenes and bizarre methods of Martian attack, torture...
, and Zorro
Zorro
Zorro is a fictional character created in 1919 by New York-based pulp writer Johnston McCulley. The character has been featured in numerous books, films, television series, and other media....
, which introduced the famous comics character Lady Rawhide. With sales stagnating, the company decided to pull out of the comics business in 1998.
Games
The Topps Pokémon cards were purely for entertainment, pleasure and collecting, but a new niche of collectible card gameCollectible card game
thumb|Players and their decksA collectible card game , also called a trading card game or customizable card game, is a game played using specially designed sets of playing cards...
s was also developing during this period (a Pokémon trading card game
Pokémon Trading Card Game
The Pokémon Trading Card Game is a collectible card game based on the Pokémon video game series, first introduced in Japan in October 1996, then North America in December 1998...
was produced simultaneously by Wizards of the Coast
Wizards of the Coast
Wizards of the Coast is an American publisher of games, primarily based on fantasy and science fiction themes, and formerly an operator of retail stores for games...
). Topps made its first foray into the world of games in July 2003 by acquiring the game company WizKids
WizKids
WizKids, Inc. is an American New Jersey-based company that first made its mark in the game industry producing collectible miniatures wargames. WizKids was purchased by and is a subsidiary of National Entertainment Collectibles Association. The company was founded in 2000 by Jordan Weisman, a...
for $29.4 million in cash, thus acquiring ownership of the rights to the well-known gaming universes of BattleTech
BattleTech
BattleTech is a wargaming and science fiction franchise launched by FASA Corporation in 1984, acquired by WizKids in 2000, and owned since 2003 by Topps. The series began with FASA's debut of the board game BattleTech by Jordan Weisman and L...
and Shadowrun
Shadowrun
Shadowrun is a role-playing game set in a near-future fictional universe in which cybernetics, magic and fantasy creatures co-exist. It combines genres of cyberpunk, urban fantasy and crime, with occasional elements of conspiracy fiction, horror, and detective fiction.The original game has spawned...
. By inventing yet another niche, the constructible strategy game
Constructible strategy game
A constructible strategy game is a tabletop strategy game employing pieces assembled from components....
Pirates of the Spanish Main
Pirates of the Spanish Main
The Pirates Constructible Strategy Game is a tabletop game manufactured by WizKids, Inc., with aspects of both miniatures and collectible card genres. Pirates of the Spanish Main is the world's first "constructible strategy game," referring to the mechanics of creating game pieces from components...
, this unit managed to reach profitability. Topps shut down Wizkids operation in November 2008 due to the economic downturn, terminating the brand while keeping their intellectual properties as the Topps company.
Awards
In conjunction with Minor League Baseball, Topps presents the J.G. Taylor Spink Award to the Topps/Minor League Player of the Year. This award should not be confused with the identically named J. G. Taylor Spink Award that is the highest award given by the Baseball Writers Association of America (BBWAA) to its members.Also in conjunction with Minor League Baseball, Topps presents the George M. Trautman
George Trautman
George M. "Red" Trautman was an American baseball executive and college men's basketball coach.-Ohio State:...
Awards to the Topps Player of the Year in each of sixteen domestic minor leagues.
- Topps All-Star Rookie TeamTopps All-Star Rookie TeamsThe Topps All-Star Rookie Team, also known as the Topps ASR, is a set of baseball cards issued by Topps Company, Inc., every year to commemorate notable Major League Baseball rookie players.-History:...
See also
- DonrussDonrussDonruss, currently known as Panini America and owned by Panini Group, manufactures sports cards. The company started in the 1950s, producing confectionery, evolved into Donruss and started producing trading cards. During the 1960s and 1970s Donruss produced entertainment-themed trading cards...
- FleerFleerThe Fleer Corporation, founded by Frank H. Fleer in 1885, was the first company to successfully manufacture bubblegum; it remained a family-owned enterprise until it was taken private in 1989....
- Razor EntertainmentRazor EntertainmentRazor Entertainment Group , founded in 2005, was a private company that produced trading cards and collectibles. Based in Dallas, Texas, it was best known as a producer of baseball cards and other lithographic products....
- Topps baseball card products
- Upper DeckUpper deckUpper deck may refer to :* The Upper Deck Company, an American trading card business* The upper deck is the highest level internal deck on a ship, i.e. just below the superstructure and open deck....
External links
- Official website
- Topps facts from USA TodayUSA TodayUSA Today is a national American daily newspaper published by the Gannett Company. It was founded by Al Neuharth. The newspaper vies with The Wall Street Journal for the position of having the widest circulation of any newspaper in the United States, something it previously held since 2003...
- Sy Berger: Father of the modern baseball card