Topps is an international marketer of entertainment products, principally collectible trading cards, confections, sticker collections, and comic books. The Topps Company was originally founded in 1938 as Topps Chewing Gum, but in 1950, the company added trading cards to its product line. Baseball cards appeared in 1951 and quickly became a vital part of pop culture, a tradition that continues to this day, and includes football and basketball, in addition to entertainment cards, stickers and albums.
From this day and on, poker enthusiasts will have new product to buy -
Topps released its inaugural collector chip. The chips resemble poker chips and come five to a pack, with random autographed chips inserted amongst the rookies, all-stars and legends. Topps representative told the press that the idea of poker chips has originated from poker worldwide extension.
Considering changes in trading card sales (severe drop from 1.2 billion in 1995 to 270 million dollars in 2005), Topps company needed fresh ideas to turn the situation around. A pilot release in 2004 of twenty-six chip set, including baseball championships teams - the New York Yankees, Boston Red Sox, Houston Astros and St. Louis Cardinals had a great success. Now the company sells these sets for fifty to hundred dollars each, which is a very nice profit.
Consequently, Topps came up with poker chips. Besides outstanding marketing success, the chips are multi-functional and great collection items. Nearly 800 Topps chip-related auctions took place recently. According to the store manager, the sales are excellent because it is a revolutionary concept for a card company. It seems that the electronic entertainment era might soon make the trading card business obsolete. Topps should receive a credit for her challenging experiment and for giving the gambling community a welcome treat.
