Non-Sports Cards Growing in 1993

From the October 26, 1993 issue of The Deseret News we find a short story about non-sport trading cards. Written by Leslie Albrecht Popiel, the article suggests that all you need is a printing press to make trading cards, which means that in today’s world of great desktop printers all of us should be designing and publishing our own sets of trading cards, right?

Best known for its baseball cards, the Topps Co. in Brooklyn has been making non-sport cards since 1948. Last year, it sold almost $14 million in non-sport, or “entertainment” cards. This represented 15% of card sales, a number that has steadily increased, according to Topps spokesman Timm Boyle. But cards based on movie or TV fads can also be risky: “You really have to strike when the iron is hot,” Boyle says. “Sports cards have a longer shelf life.”

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