By the mid 1950’s, Topps had established dominance in the baseball card market. Having outsold Bowman, their main competitor, every year since 1952, Topps was ready to branch out into other sports in an attempt to maximize their reach.
But before they made trading cards in basketball (their first set released in 1957) and football (Topps All-American released in the Fall of 1955), Topps made a set of 60 hockey cards in 1954, perhaps as a tester to see if their product could translate into other sports. What followed was the first major hockey card release by a company other than Parkhurst, a Canadian company that sold hockey cards and bubble gum starting in 1951.
Here’s an overview of Topps’ first foray into ice hockey.
1954-55 Topps Hockey: The Set
The set includes 60 unique players from one of the four U.S. based hockey teams: New York, Chicago, Boston, and Detroit. Key players in the set include Hall of Famers Gordie Howe, Terry Sawchuk, Red Kelly, Ted Lindsay, and Alex Delvecchio.
With players from only four teams, the checklist has both major and minor stars from the 1950’s. There are only three rookies in the set (#18 Doug Mohns, #32 Camille Henry, and #35 Don McKenney) mostly because other young stars had already been featured in earlier Parkhurst releases. There are a total of 16 Hall of Famers in the set, including:
- #3 Harry Howell
- #5 Red Kelly
- #8 Gordie Howe
- #10 Gump Worsley
- #11 Andy Bathgate
- #20 Bill Gadsby
- #25 Fern Flaman
- #27 Marcel Pronovost
- #39 Alex Delvecchio
- #41 Alan Stanley
- #49 Bill Quackenbush
- #51 Ted Lindsay
- #54 Bill Mosienko
- #56 Edgar Laprade
- #58 Terry Sawchuk
- #60 Milt Schmidt
Cards came in 5-cent and 1-cent packs and were sold mostly in the U.S., though O-Pee-Chee also distributed packs in Canada.
Interestingly, Topps did not have the license to print and distribute the logos of NHL teams on these cards, even if they had the right to print and distribute the photos of the players. As a result, the NHL sued Topps and Topps did not release another set of hockey cards until 1957 while this lawsuit played out.
It’s noteworthy that Topps was sued for this, as Topps themselves were known for suing other companies when it came to baseball card rights. The NHL giving Topps a taste of their own medicine, you might say.
1954-55 Topps Hockey: The Design
Early in the bubble gum era of baseball cards, Topps established themselves as trailblazers in card design. The standard “photo and bio” started by Leaf and perfected by Bowman was not enough for the design team at Topps. They knew customers wanted information and detail about the players, and their sales numbers supported that claim.
So for their first hockey card design, Topps stuck to what they knew. The first major hockey card release in the U.S. had plenty of information about each player on the front and back.
The name, position, and team banners on the bottom front were bold with a crisp font. The action shots were illustrated from photos, no doubt by the Woody Gelman-led creative team that was brought on in 1952. The facsimile autograph, a Topps staple, was superimposed over the action shot, and the illegally-printed team logos were in the top left.
The back of the card had biographical information, including the player’s full name (here you can see “Red” Kelly listed as Leonard Patrick Kelly… something that many hockey fans might not have known). The player’s stats from the previous year were included, along with the year. Previously Topps had only summed the player’s stats or not provided a year. This is an improvement that eventually found its way into other Topps releases.
Finally, an illustration accompanying a small factoid about hockey was included on the right side. Presumably, the folks at Topps were hoping to educate their customers about the sport, which was growing in popularity among American consumers. Here are some examples:
These cards were among the last “oversized” cards Topps produced, measuring at 2 5/8″ by 3 3/4″. Eventually, Topps would move to the “standard size” cards, measuring at 2 1/2″ by 3 1/2″ for all of its releases.
1954 Topps Hockey: The Value
Being the first ever hockey card set in Topps history, the 1954-55 Topps Hockey set has inherent collectibility. Add the inclusion of many Hall of Famers and the fact that it’s a small set (only 60 cards) and you have a set that is very popular to collect.
But how much would it cost to own a full set? Naturally, it depends on the condition of the set, which is likely going to be less than near mint condition.
According to PSA, out of over 17,000 cards from this set submitted for grading, none have received the prestigious Gem Mint 10 grade and only 131 have received a Mint 9 grade.
The vast majority of cards in the population are in the VG and EX range for this set. This is likely because they, like other sports cards from this era, were used heavily by collectors at the time.
The highest value card in the set is Gordie Howe #8, which sells for over $4,000 in a PSA Near Mint 7. According to Vintage Card Prices, a full set of PSA Near Mint 7 cards would cost over $15,000. The all-time record sale is a Gordie Howe PSA 8 that sold for $8,120 in August of 2020.
But if you only want to collect a raw set, you’ll pay a lot less. A full set of VG or EX cards will probably cost between $4,000 and $6,000, with most of that cost going to the Howe, Lindsay, Kelly, and Bathgate cards.
As usual, Greg Morris Cards always has raw cards of 1954-55 Topps Hockey up for auction in our site. For example, we have a VG-VGEX Gordie Howe here, a VG-VGEX Red Kelly here, and an EX-EXMT Andy Bathgate here. You can check out all of our vintage sports cards here: https://www.gregmorriscards.com/auctions
— Sources: cardboardconnection.com, PSA.com, vintagecardprices.com —