Topps Trading Card Print/Finishing Technologies

The remit was to develop print and finishing technologies that would not only leapfrog the trading card competition, but make Topps the leader in printing and finishing technologies, period. Within a few years, we had succeeded, and had gone from 4C printing on CCNB cardboard, to pushing the limits of conventional print and finishing and establishing a new paradigm for what a trading card could be.

This was accomplished by approaching the trading card as a 2.5” x 3.5” product, rather than a printed piece of cardboard. I expanded the stable of suppliers and technologies to include plastics, wood, metals, composites; micro-optics, electronics, lcd and enviro-active inks, security printing, complex multi-layer constructions, textural coatings, fabrics; and processes including: printing (all types), forming, stamping, laser cutting/engraving, embossing/debossing, coining, die-strike, casting, hydroforming, thermoforming, anodization, plating, holography (micro-etched and photopolymer)…and the list goes on.

We exploited nearly any and all industrial materials and processes into what a ‘card’ could be.

Assignment: Develop a traditional trading card product that would give fans a piece of the game. Solution: Relic Cards allow fans to have a physical piece of the artifacts of the games they love.

Understanding the reverence fans placed on their heroes led to a correlation to the religious relics of the middle ages. Singular items that were financially unobtainable to most collectors are dissected and inserted into specially developed compound print constructions. Items including bats, gloves, uniforms, balls, seats, bases, goal posts, nets and patches were built into card constructions and randomly inserted into packs for blind-purchase.

Relic Cards revolutionized the trading card industry and have since become cost-of-entry for ant trading card product.

Printing Plate Cards

Post-production, the printing plates were cut and inserted into packs as a limited edition of 4 - one for each plate - Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black, used to print the entire run of cards for that particular player.

Relic Cards

Constructions were developed to accommodate date a VERY wide range it cut items, including uniforms, bats, balls, seats, bases, nets, dirt, coats, and an entire goal post.

Much of the challenge was discovering and inventing methods to cut this wide range of items in to pieces thin enough without wasting most of these valuable game-used items.

Gallery

All-plastic construction incorporating first and second surface printing in combination with textured UV inks creates the effect of a stained glass window, elevating fans’ heroes to epic, other-worldly status.