Originally founded as American Leaf Tobacco in the late 19th century, the company was taken over in the 1930s by brothers Abram, Ira, Philip, and Jospeh Shorin from their father. Seeking a new product that could still be distributed through the defunct tobacco company's existing network of salesmen and jobbers, the Shorin brothers settled on the relatively new phenomenon of bubble gum. The Topps name officially came into existence in 1938, and one of its earliest products -- Bazooka bubble gum -- remains one of its most popular to this day. In 1950, the company decided to add trading cards to their packaging, starting with TV character Hopalong Cassidy. Soon after, Topps added baseball cards to their promotional items, and a legacy was born.

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Topps employee Sy Berger designed the original Topps baseball card layout singlehandedly. The original design -- still in use today with few changes -- included the player's name, photo and autograph, team name and logo on the front; and his height, weight, biography and stats on the back.

Through the early 1950s, Topps entered into fierce competition with Bowman, the erstwhile leading producer of baseball cards. The competition was not just fierce, but sometimes dirty, so much so that Bowman ultimately sued Topps in federal court, attempting on various grounds to crush their new competitor. This situation ended abruptly in 1956 when Topps bought out Bowman. Topps enjoyed a virtual monopoly on the baseball card market for the next decade until the formation of the Major League Baseball Players' Association, which acted as a sort of union for the MLB players, and which began changing the guidelines by which players and teams could be represented in merchandise.

Even then, Topps dominated the card market until the early 1980s, when Fleer and Donruss became heavy players. By the end of the decade, the competition in baseball cards had heated up significantly, and the entry of highline manufacturer Upper Deck preciptated an explosion of new options for collectors from all the major manufacturers. In this timeframe Topps resurrected the Bowman brand to market rookie and minor league players, introduced their Stadium Club line of premium cards, and in subsequent years brought out many additional lines to cater to different specialized interests among collectors.

Although the baseball card market has gone through some upheavals in this decade, the innovations Topps brought to the table have given it a lasting legacy, and with only Topps and Upper Deck remaining as official MLB card producers, the future seems bright indeed.