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1950s Topps


Topps joined the sports cards market in the 1950s becoming a rival to Bowman. After competing with each other for five years Topps bought out Bowman in 1956. Competition still remained however, in the form of Parkhurst hockey cards. Topps produced cards of the United States-based National Hockey League teams while Parkhurst covered the Canadian teams. Topps had produced multi-sport photo cards prior to 1950, namely the 1948 Topps Magic Photos but each set was very small and not considered a major set. This trend was consistent with their first baseball and college football issues: the 1950 Feltbacks resembled college pennants; 1951 Magic football included a scratch-off game on the reverse; Red/Blue Backs intended to be a card game; Connie Mack/Current All-Stars are foldable stand-ups. It was in 1952 that Topps released their first truly major card set. In the autumn of 1951, Woody Gelman and Sy Berger, then a 28-year-old veteran of World War II, designed the 1952 Topps baseball card set on the kitchen table of Berger's apartment on Alabama Avenue in Brooklyn. The 1957 Topps set featured dimensions of 2½ by 3½ inches which has become known as the standard card size. Below is a list with brief descriptions of Topps trading card products for the 1950s.

1 Pack type(card quantity)
# indicates varying quantity

Beginning in 1959, Topps began permitting the printing of cards by a printer (Benco) in Venezuela on account of it being a viable baseball market. The most significant difference from the U.S. issue was the card stock quality used for the Venezuelan cards. Two distinctly different card stocks were used (one with gray backs, the other with cream backs), and both were of much lower grade. Cards from this set have a duller finish on the front due to no gloss being applied. Approximately half of the set has a copyright designation which states the card was printed in the US, while the other half state 'Impreso en Venezuela por Benco CA'. The 1959 Venezuelan set features cards 1-198 from their U.S. counterpart. (It has been long believed that the set consisted of only 196 cards, however, it has been found to have been incorrectly documented for years with card #198 having been validated by independent third-party agency PSA as being from the set). Size: 2.5 × 3.5 inches.


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