Quote:
Originally Posted by Tallboy
I really feel like the key moment for Topps' turn around came in 1991 with Stadium Club.
Prior to that point, I saw Topps as literally the worst company and that anything they made was the worst product. Topps & Bowman, worst sets in baseball. Topps in football worse than Score, Fleer & Pro Set. Topps in hockey, the particularly bad version of O-Pee-Chee, that was worse than Pro Set, Score & Upper Deck. Topps just seemed completely left behind in the dust.
And then Stadium Club hit in 1991 and it was just clearly an order-of-magnitude nicer than anything else in any sport on the hobby. It hit at the same time as Fleer's analogous Ultra, and 1991 Ultra was a joke in comparison. Overnight, Topps went from being the butt of jokes, to being the market leader again.
From there Topps' found a premium niche for Bowman, brought chrome & refractors in with Finest, and by the time Topps Chrome his in '96-97, collectors were frankly used to thinking of Topps as the company making the best product even if they weren't in love with Topps base.
I think all of that is what led to hobby love eventually embracing Topps base. Take out those particular successes in the '90s, we don't see Topps the same was in 2020. Quite possibly Topps isn't able to be swallowed up by Upper Deck or someone else in any of the subsequent hobby winters that followed.
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My problem with stadium club is there was sooooo much of it in my house it was overwhelming and I just never fell in love with it. Now basketball stadium club was a lot more fun to rip for me than baseball, as thats what we had the most of, but I saw those backs so often I was overdosed with no other options to look forward to.
Even today, I'm not a fan of stadium club, I went a year trying to find a pack of cards in target, so much so I'd buy racing or hockey cards just to feed me addiction to rip. Well I found three stadium club blasters and I did not buy them. Lol
The inserts were a lot of fun when they started showing up in fleer and fleer ultra, with upper deck having soke limited autos to find.
If you came back to the hobby recently like me, topps being valuable must feel like Michael j fox showing up in a world owned and Co trolled by Biff, wtf happened?