Topps Chewing Gum, Inc.
All of us here share a passion for this hobby, but how many of us know its origins? The landscape of the trading card industry has changed dramatically over the decades since its inception, and we expect it to continue evolving as collector appetites shift. To understand where we are today, we need to understand how we got here.
Baseball cards began to be printed in the 1860s, shortly after baseball became a professional sport. However, their popularity is owed to the tobacco and other industries that used these cards as prizes. Without their use as a marketing tool, the hobby we know and love today might not exist.
Interestingly, baseball cards—or any other sports cards—weren’t the first trading cards. That distinction belongs to “trade cards.” One of the earliest examples was found in packs of cigarettes. These trade cards helped advertise products and were tucked into the packaging to help stiffen and protect the product. Allen and Ginter was the first tobacco company to print advertisements in the U.S., and over the following years, this practice grew. These trade cards showcased a variety of topics, targeting men who smoked, including nature, war, and, of course, sports.
By the turn of the century in 1900, thousands of sets of trade cards manufactured by hundreds of tobacco companies flooded the market. Children would wait outside retail stores and ask customers who had just bought a pack of cigarettes for the card. Thus, a collectors’ hobby was born. However, during World War II, the practice of printing paper advertisements like trade cards came to a halt due to paper shortages, and it never fully returned to the tobacco industry. But the concept of including prizes such as cards within retail products persisted, and trade cards began appearing in various types of packaging.
In the early 1900s, most baseball cards came in either candy or tobacco products. It was during this period that the most valuable card in history was produced—the T206 Honus Wagner tobacco card. Fewer than 200 of these cards were ever made, and their value has skyrocketed into the millions, making it one of the most valuable sports cards today.
Baseball cards continued to evolve over the following decades. In the 1930s, manufacturers began printing biographies on the backs of the cards. Baseball cards were now also found in packs of bubble gum, and, as many of us fondly remember, this eventually flipped, with bubble gum being included in packs of baseball cards.
Many people may not realize that Topps, one of the largest players in the sports trading card industry, didn’t start as a trading card company. It began as Topps Chewing Gum, Inc., and they started inserting trade cards into their packaging in 1950. These cards depicted TV and film stars, big game hunters, and American football players. Topps produced their first baseball card in 1951, and the first true sports trading card as we know it today was created in 1952. These cards included player records, statistics, and biographies, making it one of the most popular and valuable sets of all time. For example, this set contains the rookie card of Mickey Mantle. This marked the birth of the modern sports trading card.
The production of sports trading cards took off from there. While baseball remained the most popular for years, other sports began to be represented. Today, there are trading cards for every major sport, as well as various others—baseball, football, basketball, hockey, golf, racing, and more. The value of the cards depends heavily on factors such as age, condition, and availability.
In the 1980s and 1990s, the manufacturing of sports trading cards boomed, flooding the market and diminishing the value of many cards from that era. Manufacturers learned their lesson, and today the volume of cards produced is more carefully controlled. As a result, the value of individual trading cards has skyrocketed, with some hobby boxes containing just one or two packs with only a few cards each.
Decades ago, collectors focused on completing full sets. Today, however, there is little emphasis on complete sets, with more energy directed toward finding the most valuable individual cards.
The sports trading card hobby has a long and fascinating history, and as collectors, we owe thanks to industries such as tobacco and candy/chewing gum manufacturers that helped create our beloved hobby. Moving forward, it will be interesting to see how our industry continues to evolve.
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