|
The mind-boggling numbers are really secondary. Since the
Topps Co. introduced its first set 50 years ago this spring, its baseball cards
have become an icon of popular culture of the second half of the 20th century.
And, of course, the victim of mom's spring-cleaning for generations of young
Americans.
Topps entered the sports card business as a way to sell
Bazooka bubble gum; 40 years later, the company eliminated the gum from packs
because collectors complained it was staining the cardboard. The irony illustrates
the evolution of the sports collectibles hobby.
"I had them in my spokes. Nowadays they use tweezers,"
says Topps CEO Arthur T. Shorin, whose father and uncles started the business
that now is based in Manhattan.
Baby boomers tossed them into shoeboxes in the 1950s and
'60s; now appraisers seal them in plastic cases that document their condition.
The cards used to come with gum; now the companies insert a piece of a bat or
uniform of a big-leaguer.
To celebrate its golden anniversary, Topps is inserting
more than 30,000 vintage cards in this year's packs, including redemption vouchers
for three 1952 Mickey Mantle rookie cards, Topps' piece de resistance.
We used to flip 'em, trade 'em and, yes, stick 'em in the
spokes of a bicycle to make it sound like a motorcycle. Now collectors acquire
and divest them as in a portfolio and hope the profits help 'em buy a
motorcycle.
Still, the essence of it remains for kids — and kids
at heart. It's that unexplainable lure to a 2½-by-3½-inch piece of cardboard
with a picture in color of a baseball player.
Collected by young and old
"Every year, I still buy two or three packs just for the
heck of it, just to see who I get," says Dave Kelly, 51, a Library of Congress
reference librarian who specializes in sports and recreation.
"I still collect them like I did when I was 10," says Baltimore
Orioles pitcher Alan Mills, 34. "It could be going to the 7-Eleven, getting
some apple juice and picking up some cards."
Just as timeless is the equally irresistible urge for America's
mothers to toss 'em, or so we claim. Moms are the ultimate scapegoats for the
lost treasures of our youth.
"He's still mad at me. He thinks I threw away his baseball
cards," says one exasperated mom. " 'They'd be worth millions now.' I'm quoting
him: 'Millions now.' "
Make that one exasperated "first mom." The comment was
from Barbara Bush, to Newsweek last summer, about the 43rd president
of the United States.
George W. may exaggerate the market value, but his childhood
collection was indeed enviable. He would send the cards and return postage to
star players, asking them to autograph the cards — a practice that wasn't
common until years later.
The popularity of baseball cards has gone in cycles, but
it seems they mean the most to the kids who collected them before they became
investments.
"This was part of our connection to the game," says NBC
broadcaster Bob Costas, who carries a 1958 Topps All-Star card of Mickey Mantle
in his wallet. "We didn't have all the highlight shows. Though some games were
on television, they were in black and white. Most of the games, you listened
to on radio. There was a less direct connection, a certain distance."
Then, kids would open packs and thumb through the cards
with a familiar litany: "Got 'em, got 'em, need 'em." Today, it's more
likely to be: "Nutin', nutin', five bucks."
"I understand, but I can never relate at all to the idea
of baseball cards as an investment. They only had emotional value," Costas adds.
"I'll pull out my Mantle card and lots of kids will say, "How much is it worth?'
I tell them I got it in a pack, next to Pumpsie Green and Bob Kuzava."
Green and Kuzava were obscure players of the '50s and early
'60s. But like Eli Grba, Pancho Herrera and Arnie Portocarrero, they became
household names to Topps collectors. And their cards could be just as valuable
as a Mantle or Ted Williams if you needed them to complete that year's set.
"I remember in 1959, I had Mantle, Mays and Aaron, but
I couldn't get Norm Siebern," Costas says. "I had to give up Yogi Berra and
someone like a Drysdale to get Norm Siebern! But it was a deal you had to make."
While Topps has been challenged by competition half of
its 50-year run, its brand is to baseball cards what Band-Aid is to adhesive
bandages.
Mike Payne, managing editor of Beckett Baseball Card
Monthly, says it's a feel-good product for many adults: "Before we had all
these responsibilities in life, we had Topps. It's like a security blanket."
Evolution of cards
Baseball cards were around before the turn of the 19th
century, primarily distributed with cigarettes. (The Library of Congress boasts
a collection that goes from 1887 to 1914). Goudey Gum Co. was among the first
to package gum with the cards in the 1930s. After the paper and rubber shortages
of World War II, Bowman started in 1948. Topps, founded in 1938 and best known
for its 1-cent chewing gum known as "change-makers," put out a pair of 52-card
sets in 1951 that were designed more as a game than a collectible.
The following year, Joseph E. Shorin (Arthur's father)
gave Berger the signal to go head-to-head with Bowman. Working with the art
and creative designers, he increased the size to 3¾-by-2 5/8 inches and put
team logos with player signatures on the front. The early Bowmans were 3-by-2
inches and often didn't have the player's name on the front. "You didn't have
to be too smart to beat that card," says Berger, 77, who has worked for Topps
since 1947 and now is a senior adviser to the company.
The 1952 set is considered a classic by collectors, valued
at $40,000-$65,000 in near-mint condition by the Beckett price guide.
Topps reprinted the set in 1983 and that issue sells for as much as $300. The
original Mantle card, particularly rare because it was in the second series
with a smaller press run, is listed at $18,000 in near-mint condition, non-graded.
A professionally graded mint version has sold at auction for $121,000.
The Bowman-Topps competition soon centered on getting players
under contract, and Berger was Topps' point man. He paid players $125 for the
rights, $25 more than Bowman.
Bowman sued Topps, claiming the newcomer was infringing
on its contracts with players. During the litigation, Topps steered clear of
several players in question — that's why there is no Topps card of Mantle
for 1954 and '55.
Topps eventually bought out Bowman and all but monopolized
the market for the next 25 years. Serious competition returned in 1981, when
Fleer and Donruss entered the market after a favorable antitrust ruling.
Big changes
Today, hobby buying and trading is driven by autographs/memorabilia
and "rookie cards," a player's first card in a major issue. Companies slice
up bats, balls and uniforms of former and current big-leaguers and embed them
in double-layered cards, which can sell for as much as $20 a pack. (The Topps
50th anniversary issue carries a suggested price of $1.29 a pack but typically
sells for $2).
Scott Kelnhofer, editor of Card Trade, a trade journal
from Krause Publications, estimates that about half of today's collectors are
kids but the bulk of the money is "coming out of adult pockets."
Like the game itself, the industry is fretting about the
trend. "There is concern over the erosion of kid collectors, 14 and under,"
Kelnhofer says. "They're more interested in video games and such."
And kids are taking their cue from adults, chasing autographs
and game-used memorabilia.
Mark Leiter, a New York Mets pitcher whose collection spans
the mid-'50s to the '80s, says his young son surprised him one day as they looked
at cards of Leiter. "He wanted me to sign some of them. I said, 'Mark, I'm your
dad.'"
The manufacturers are trying to appeal to the casual and
high-end collectors while positioning themselves for the future. In the evolution
from flipping games and bike spokes, the next step is owning cards you won't
touch.
The innovation is e-Topps, in which the investment collector
buys and sells on the Internet without taking physical possession of the specially
printed cards. They are stored in a Topps vault, to ensure they remain in mint
condition, and can be resold via eBay.com. The buyer can have the card delivered
to him, but then he won't be able to resell it through Topps/eBay.
Topps also is opening its vault this summer to auction
archival material like its signed contracts with players and photos that were
used to make cards. In 1989, it sold thousands of pieces of original artwork
from vintage cards of the early 1950s, grossing more than $1.6 million (with
a portion of the proceeds going to charity).
Ironically, the company never saved its cards in an archive.
When it offers old cards as a promotion, it has to go into the collectors market
to buy them. (Topps spent more than $250,000 to buy cards for this year's promotions).
In a late '50s warehouse cleaning, it dumped hundreds of
cases of the second-series '52s in the Atlantic Ocean, with countless numbers
of the now-rare Mantles.
Even CEO Shorin, who collected Goudeys as a kid and worked
summers at the family business, doesn't have anything from his childhood collection.
"It happened to me, too," he says. "My mother threw them
out."
Answers to photo quiz
Upper left: Jose Canseco of the Oakland A's from his 1988 card
Upper right: All-Star Dave Parker of the Pittsburgh Pirates from 1978
Lower right: A young Roger Clemens of the Boston Red Sox in 1986
Lower left: (Trick question) Hank Aaron of the Milwaukee Braves in 1957. The
Topps company mistakenly reversed the negative on the young slugger's picture
and ended up showing baseball's future home run king as a left-handed hitter.
For a larger version of the photo click
here.
|
