Topps Marks 70 Years of Baseball Cards with Special Artist-Designed Cards

In 1951, Topps released their first set of baseball cards, hoping to entice people into buying their chewing gum. Instead, they created a sports collectable industry that’s still going strong 70 years later. To celebrate the anniversary, “artists and creatives around the globe are revisiting and reimagining 70 years of iconic baseball card designs” as part of Project70.

They’re releasing a few cards at a time for a limited time — you can find the current selection in the Topps online store. I’ve included three of my favorites above: 1976 Mike Trout by Fucci, 1953 Rickey Henderson by Pose, and 1983 Roberto Clemente by Sean Wotherspoon.

Question: Since the case is now part of the collectable being sold, do you have to put the whole thing in a bigger case to preserve its overall mint condition? Where does this end? (via print)

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David Roth got a job at Topps

David Roth got a job at Topps writing for the backs of baseball cards and finds that it’s pretty much like any other job for a large, soulless corporation. “Baseball cards, it turned out, are not made in a card-cluttered candy land. Rather, they are created by ordinary men and women who are generally unawed by their proximity to a central part of American boyhood.” (thx, patricio)

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• topps
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Jim Caple takes a tour of the

Jim Caple takes a tour of the Topps HQ in Manhattan. “I’m only half-listening because I’ve noticed an uncut sheet of 1968 baseball cards he has framed along his office wall. I can’t help but notice that down near the lower left-hand corner of the sheet is a Nolan Ryan rookie card. Beyond mint condition.”

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• nolanryan
• sports
• topps

The decline of the baseball card industry

The decline of the baseball card industry. I collected in the late 80s, early 90s. It became a lot less fun when the companies started releasing special editions in limited quantities just to drive up value and demand artificially.

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