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. 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.

Use of statistics

This included stickers, posters (Wanted Posters, Travel Posters), media tie-ins (Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In), book covers (Batty Bookcovers) and toys (Flying Things), plus offbeat packaging (Garbage Candy). However, the emergence of the American Football League (AFL) in 1960 to compete with the established National Football League also allowed Topps’s competitors, beginning with Fleer, to make inroads. Fleer produced a set for the AFL in 1960, sets for both leagues for a year, and then began focusing on the AFL again. Philadelphia Gum secured the NFL rights for 1964, forcing Topps to go for the AFL and leaving Fleer with no product in either baseball or football.

Baseball Superstars Autographs Set Checklist

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. In the 2010s, Topps was the only baseball card manufacturer with a license with Major League Baseball.[5] Following the loss of that license to Fanatics, Inc. in 2022, Fanatics acquired Topps in the same year. As well as single print on demand cards like Topps Now and Living set you can also find exclusive collections available at Topps.com this summer. Fresh off the back of England’s victory over the West Indies, we turn our cricket focus to The100, as stars of the game gather to play in ECB’s summer extravaganza. Women’s and Men’s teams will be battling it out across the country to see who can take the trophy and be crowned the best in the 100-ball format.

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 airbrushing 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.

Trading cards for other sports

Each set contained 52 cards, like a deck of playing cards, and in fact the cards could be used to play a game that would simulate the events of a baseball 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» or «single.» Topps are incredibly excited to release our first ever darts trading card set.

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, Topps launched a new brand of sports cards called eTopps 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. During this period, baseball card manufacturers generally obtained the rights to depict players on merchandise by signing individual players to contracts for the purpose.

The first set was released in late 2008 in the U.K., and it was then later released in the United States in mid-2009. This later proved to be a pattern for subsequent Slam Attax sets and variations, with the U.K. After failing to take off, Topps ceased production of Slam Attax cards in the U.S. after only two sets, whilst continuing the line in the U.K. In the United Kingdom, where football stickers have been popular over roughly the same period of time as trading cards, Topps acquired the old Amalgamated and British Confectionery firm in 1974, bringing its production methods and card style to Britain. Under its Merlin brand, it has the licence to produce stickers for the Premier League and the national team.

Topps Europe Ltd. products

Sales declined significantly in the 1970s, however, when this relatively hard gum was challenged by Bubble Yum, a new, softer form of bubble gum from Life Savers. 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, known collectively as the «Kirbyverse».

1. Corporate offices remained at th Street in Brooklyn, a location in the waterfront district by the Gowanus Expressway.
2. Beginning at Topps when he was a teenager, Art Spiegelman was the company’s main staff cartoonist for more than 20 years.
3. Topps also acquired ThePit.com, a startup company that earlier in 2000 had launched a site for online stock-market style card trading.
4. New Signings will be also be featured for Topps NOW as we follow all the action from the Summer Transfer window, capturing the signings as they happen.
5. When Topps next introduced baseball cards as a product, the cards immediately became its primary emphasis.

Although more competitive for a time, the football card market was never as lucrative as the market for baseball cards, so the other companies did not fight as hard over it. After the AFL–NFL Merger 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 in the 1980s. 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.

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 rookie 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.

The Hundred – Tournament collection

Back for another season, The100 set features the best cricketers from this year’s summer tournament. With a packed checklist, 2 parallels per box, +25 signees and an autograph now guaranteed in itrader review every box, this set promises to knock cricket collectors for six! Cards are on sale for a limited time which you can see from the timer on each product page. After the timer expires Topps will publish a ‘print run’ to show how many cards have been made. When the Topps name was sold with the trading card business and entertainment properties to Fanatics, the confectionary business was spun-off as Bazooka Brands, which remains owned by the previous owners. Baseball artist Dick Perez was commissioned to paint art cards for Topps beginning in 2006.

At the mid-season point of the ’24 season we have one of the most open competitions in recent history. Following a strong start from Red Bull’s Max Verstappen, McLaren are now in the ascendancy, with  Ferrari consistently in the points and Hamilton back on the podium. Following on from an incredible UEFA Euro thinkmarkets broker review competition, the summer of sports continues at Topps.com with a packed ‘Topps NOW’ schedule and exciting new collections. Finally, collectors can chase signed cards via Baseball Superstars Autographs. While they aren’t noted with the pack odds, these cards appear to be very rare.

If using such a prop, the player might pose in a position as if he were in the act of batting, pitching, or fielding. However, that year also saw problems with the print quality in the second series, which lacked the right proportion of ink 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.

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Box Loader

Look out for top players and big-hitters such as Ben Stokes, Ravi Bopara, Alyssa Healy, Dane van Niekerk, Jofra Archer, Joe Root, Nat Scriver and Jonny Bairstow. Among Topps’s most notable achievements in the area of satire and parody have been Wacky Packages, a takeoff on various household consumer products, and Garbage Pail Kids, a parody of the Cabbage Patch Kids dolls. Another popular series was the Civil War News set, also with Norman Saunders’ artwork. However, Topps has noted that increasing public attention to childhood nutrition 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. Look out for ‘parallel’ versions of the cards which will be shipped at random to lucky customers.

Although Topps had produced error cards and variations before, this was its largest single production glitch. A collector’s favourite for its unreal content, beautiful designs and exquisite printing, the latest instalment of UEFA Inception will not disappoint! Football hobbyists can look forward to familiar themes like ‘First XI’, ‘Legacy’, and ‘Star quality’, plus new all-new subsets still to be announced.

Topps Europe Ltd.

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. 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 predominant producer of baseball cards for the next quarter-century.

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.

Topps Baseball UK Edition Checklist

In 1995, the Topps Company Inc. completed its takeover of Merlin Publishing. Merlin’s official company name changed to Topps Europe Limited, but its products still carried the Merlin brand until 2008 as it was easily recognized by consumers. From this office products are launched across Europe, including Spain, France, Germany, Norway, and Italy.

Through our partnerships with clubs, Topps also get access to exclusive behind-the-scenes photography, so look out for exclusive training shots and off-field fun. New Signings will be also be featured for Topps NOW as we follow all the action from the Summer Transfer window, capturing the signings as they happen. In many cases this will be the first opportunity to collector players in new kit, with their new club which could make it a valuable card in years to come. Fleer signed star Ted Williams to an exclusive contract in 1959 and sold a set of cards oriented around him.

Until 2019, Topps made ‘Topps Premier League’ stickers and the Match Attax trading card game,[44] and since 2015 it has produced stickers and trading cards for the UEFA Champions League. 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’s 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.

Candy and confectionery items

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. In later years, Topps either printed series in smaller quebex quantities late in the season or destroyed excess cards.

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. Starting in 1968–69, the Topps Company started printing an annual Topps hockey set that was similar to the annual O-Pee-Chee hockey set.

The longest-lived Topps product line remains Bazooka bubble gum, small pieces of gum in patriotic red, white, and blue packaging. Unlike the gum sold with baseball cards, questrade fx 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 comic strip on the wrapper as an added attraction. Originally, Topps was purely a gum company, and its first product was simply called «Topps gum». In imitation of Bowman and other competitors, Topps eventually began producing humor products unrelated to sports.

1. It also had some pedagogical benefit by encouraging youngsters to take an interest in the underlying mathematics.
2. If using such a prop, the player might pose in a position as if he were in the act of batting, pitching, or fielding.
3. The combination of baseball cards and bubble gum was popular among young boys, and given the mediocre quality of the gum, the cards quickly became the primary attraction.
4. The later acquisition of rights to additional players allowed Topps to release its second series.
5. If we are including a numbered card guarantee with parallels up to say, 99 for each subject, we cannot print beyond that number so there is an upper limit on how many boxes we can make.

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. 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. 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.

At the time, chewing gum was still a relative novelty sold in individual pieces. Topps’s most successful early product was Bazooka bubble gum,[8] which was packaged with a small comic on the wrapper. When Topps next introduced baseball cards as a product, the cards immediately became its primary emphasis. 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, bubble 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 2-5/8 inches by 3-3/4 inches with square corners.

This limited-run collection will feature teenage sensation Luke Littler, fresh from his incredible rookie season. This high-spec collection will include flight relics, shirt relics and one guaranteed on-card autograph per box. Many Topps artists came from the world of comics 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. Beginning at Topps when he was a teenager, Art Spiegelman was the company’s main staff cartoonist for more than 20 years. Other staffers in Topps’s Product Development Department at various times included Larry Riley, Mark Newgarden, Bhob Stewart and Rick Varesi.

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. In 2008,[45] Topps and Zuffa, LLC signed an exclusive agreement to produce mixed martial arts trading cards. 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.