50 Fun Facts About Trading Cards

Which Pittsburgh Pirates shortstop's rare T206 card became the first sports card to sell for over $1 million?

Honus Wagner refused to let production of his card continue, so only about 50 to 200 copies ever reached the public. One of them sold for $1,265,000 at auction in 2000.

Where did Topps executive Sy Berger say he dumped truckloads of unsold 1952 baseball cards in 1960?

The Atlantic Ocean tale has Berger riding the barge himself to free up warehouse space, though some researchers believe the unwanted cards were really shipped to Venezuela and sold there.

Which product's packs often carried baseball cards in the 1880s, partly to protect the contents from damage?

Cigarettes were sold with pictures of ballplayers by early 1886, and the stiff card doubled as an advertisement for the brand.

Which Pokémon's holographic card from the trading card game's first release is the most desired by collectors?

Charizard cards have sold for hundreds of thousands of dollars, and one graded copy fetched $336,000 at Heritage Auctions in 2022.

Which Magic: The Gathering card, printed only in early core sets, sold for $3 million in 2024?

Black Lotus can be played at zero cost and still grants a burst of three mana. It is the best known of the 'Power Nine', nine famously strong cards from the first sets.

Which gross-out Topps sticker series of 1985, dreamed up by cartoonist Art Spiegelman, parodied the Cabbage Patch dolls?

Garbage Pail Kids were banned in many schools at the height of the craze, and the doll's owners sued Topps for trademark infringement in 1986.

Which New York Yankees slugger's 1952 Topps card sold for a record $12.6 million in August 2022?

Mickey Mantle's most famous card is not even his rookie card: the only recognised one is a 1951 Bowman, issued a year earlier.

Which rapper paid more than $2 million for the one-of-a-kind One Ring card from Magic: The Gathering?

Post Malone is such a devoted player that the game's publisher released special sets in 2022 with his face on some cards and his tattoos in the art of others.

Which Pokémon appears on the 'Illustrator' contest prize card that Logan Paul acquired for $5,275,000 in 2021?

Pikachu fronts one of the rarest Pokémon cards: only 41 copies were printed, as prizes for design contests run by the Japanese magazine CoroCoro Comic.

Which gory 1962 Topps science fiction card series was halted after a public outcry and later inspired a Tim Burton film?

Mars Attacks was a hit with children, but its scenes of explicit gore drew such complaints that Topps stopped the presses. Burton's film version arrived in 1996.

Which American mathematician invented Magic: The Gathering, the first collectible card game, released in 1993?

Richard Garfield was partly inspired by marbles: his first rules made players stake a random card on every game, so that they would play with their cards rather than simply collect them.

Which company, started in a basement near Seattle, published Magic: The Gathering and later bought Dungeons & Dragons?

Wizards of the Coast grew from a few employees to 250 within two years of the game's launch, then announced the purchase of the role-playing publisher TSR in 1997.

Which toy giant bought the publisher of Magic: The Gathering in 1999, largely on the strength of a Pokémon card licence?

Hasbro paid about $325 million in September 1999, the same year the publisher's English-language Pokémon cards began selling by the million.

Which Japanese video game company publishes the Yu-Gi-Oh! card game, named the world's top seller by Guinness in 2009?

Konami had sold over 22 billion of the cards worldwide by the time of the record, having launched the game in Japan in 1999.

Which Yu-Gi-Oh! monster is the signature card of Seto Kaiba, the wealthy rival of the hero Yugi Mutou?

Blue-Eyes White Dragon got its name because creator Kazuki Takahashi wanted readers of the manga to be able to conjure up its colours.

In the Yu-Gi-Oh! card game, holding all five pieces of which 'Forbidden One' wins the duel automatically?

Exodia skips the usual route to victory, which is to grind an opponent's 8,000 Life Points down to nothing, one monster battle at a time.

Which company, founded in Modena in 1961, published its first World Cup sticker album for the 1970 tournament?

Panini is named after the brothers who founded it, and one of those first 1970 albums, signed by Pelé, sold for a record £10,450 in 2017.

Which hockey great's 1979 O-Pee-Chee rookie card sold for a record-setting $3.75 million in May 2021?

Wayne Gretzky was a card investor himself: he and Bruce McNall once paid $451,000 at auction for a rare T206 baseball card, which they later sold.

Which teenage Seattle Mariners prospect was chosen as card number one in Upper Deck's debut 1989 baseball set?

Ken Griffey Jr. had not yet played a major league game when the set went to press, so the famous card shows him in a San Bernardino Spirit minor league uniform.

Which caramel-coated popcorn and peanut snack began tucking baseball cards into its boxes as prizes in 1914?

Cracker Jack had only started putting a prize in every box in 1912, and its cards covered both major leagues plus the short-lived Federal League.

Which Philadelphia firm, maker of Dubble Bubble, won a 1980 court ruling that broke Topps' monopoly on baseball cards?

Fleer had sued both Topps and the players' union to get into the market. Decades earlier its employee Walter Diemer had created the first commercially successful bubble gum.

Which Baltimore Orioles infielder's 1989 baseball card became notorious for an obscenity written on the knob of his bat?

Billy Ripken later admitted writing the words himself, saying he only meant to mark a batting practice bat. The maker's hasty cover-ups, from marker scrawls to correction fluid, created several versions.

Which free-to-play Blizzard digital card game, released in 2014, is set in the Warcraft universe?

Hearthstone borrowed concepts and art from an earlier physical World of Warcraft card game, and Blizzard reported more than 100 million players by November 2018.

Which card game from Andrzej Sapkowski's Witcher novels became a popular minigame in The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt?

Gwent later became a standalone game of its own, which dropped the Siege row and left only the Melee and Ranged rows.

Which 2023 Ravensburger card game casts players as 'Illumineers' who summon 'glimmers' with magical ink?

Lorcana's 'glimmers' are different iterations of Disney characters, and the German puzzle maker released the game in collaboration with The Walt Disney Company.

Which Magic: The Gathering format, born as fan-made 'Elder Dragon Highlander', uses 100-card decks with no repeats?

Commander was developed in the late 1990s by Adam Staley and became a staple of his local play groups in Alaska. Ordinary decks may hold up to four copies of a card.

In which Magic: The Gathering tournament format do players open a pack, pick one card and pass the rest along?

Draft usually seats eight players with three packs each. The first and third go round the table to the left, the second to the right.

In trading card games, what is the usual name for a small sealed pack of randomly assorted cards?

Booster packs usually hold 8 to 15 cards and cost less than a ready-to-play deck, yet the price per card typically works out higher.

In the Pokémon Trading Card Game, which category of card includes Items, Supporters and Stadiums?

Trainer cards range from quick Items to the Supporters, which offer the strongest effects and so are limited to one per turn.

Which NBA legend's rookie card headlines a 1986 set that also has rookies Charles Barkley and Hakeem Olajuwon?

Michael Jordan's set is credited with resurrecting the basketball card industry, and for three seasons its maker was the only major company printing cards of NBA players.

In Magic: The Gathering, what is the term for turning a card sideways to show that it has been used?

Tapping was among the ideas covered by a patent granted to the game's publisher in 1997, along with building a deck by choosing cards from a larger pool.

In Magic: The Gathering, what name is given to the duelling spellcasters that the players themselves represent?

Planeswalkers are also a card type of their own: these spells summon powerful allies that behave almost like extra players on your side.

Which Boston company packed its 1933 'Big League' baseball cards with sticks of gum, in a set featuring Babe Ruth?

Goudey had been making chewing gum since 1919, yet today the name is remembered mainly for the 240 cards it slipped into those packs.

Which statistics professor founded a baseball card price guide publisher in 1984 under his own surname?

James Beckett began compiling price guides in the 1970s, giving far more detail on individual cards than the newsletters collectors were used to. His name now also sits on a card grading service.

Which Japanese toy company released the One Piece Card Game in 2022, after earlier card games based on anime series?

Bandai broke its own habit with this release: its past card games drew only on anime, while this one spans the manga and the live-action series as well.

Which household product did Brooke Bond sell with collectable picture cards for British children from 1954 until 1999?

Tea packets each held a card from a series of usually 50, and the final sets of the 1990s starred the chimps from the company's television adverts.

Which Los Angeles Angels outfielder's one-of-a-kind 2009 'Superfractor' rookie card sold for $3.93 million in 2020?

Mike Trout's card set a new all-time record for any sports card, though it held the title for only a few months before a 1952 Topps card passed it.

Which former Disney chief executive's firm, The Tornante Company, joined the buyout of Topps in October 2007?

Michael Eisner soon pushed the card maker toward film and television, starting with plans for a movie about its bubble gum comic hero Bazooka Joe.

Which 1996 cyberpunk card game by the creator of Magic: The Gathering pits a hacker against a global mega-corporation?

Netrunner is unusually lopsided by design: each side has different abilities and plays with completely different cards, right down to the card backs.

Which retired player's card, number 106, was missing from a famous 1933 baseball gum set until it was issued in 1934?

Napoleon Lajoie had played his last major league game back in 1916, so the card that finally filled the gap honoured a second baseman long out of the sport.

In which Ontario city, sharing its name with a European capital, was hockey card maker O-Pee-Chee based?

London, Ontario, was home to the confectionery firm from its founding in 1911, and from 1961 the cards it made with Topps were printed at its headquarters there.

Which Japanese company was the original publisher of the Pokémon Trading Card Game when it launched in October 1996?

Media Factory had the cards to itself for more than two years before an English version went on sale in the United States.

Which collection of folk tales inspired the first expansion set for Magic: The Gathering, released in December 1993?

Arabian Nights was designed by the game's own creator and borrowed figures straight from the stories, Aladdin among them.

In which New York City borough did Sy Berger design the 1952 Topps baseball set on his kitchen table?

Brooklyn housed the whole company too: Topps originally ran everything from the Bush Terminal there, and only moved production to Pennsylvania in 1965.

In the Pokémon Trading Card Game, what is a Pokémon said to be when its damage reaches or exceeds its HP?

Knocked Out Pokémon hand the opponent a prize card, and taking all six prize cards is the most common way to win.

Which science fiction film of 1977 launched a line of Topps cards that were still being produced decades later?

Star Wars cards were written and photo-selected by Topps editor Gary Gerani, who also pencilled the 1977 front design that the company has often reused.

Which Topps card game became the Premier League's official trading card game after the company won the rights in 2007?

Match Attax followed the company's purchase of the Premier League's trading card rights in 2007, and a Bundesliga edition was launched in January 2009.

Which sports merchandise company, led by Michael Rubin, announced in January 2022 that it had bought Topps?

Fanatics paid about $500 million, only months after winning baseball's card licence away from the older firm.

Which British card game of comparing statistics was launched in 1978 by Dubreq, the company behind the Stylophone?

Top Trumps first went on sale as eleven different packs at 50p each, and trumping a rival's card became a playground pastime of the 1970s and 1980s.

In the Pokémon Trading Card Game, which area holds up to five Pokémon waiting behind the Active one?

Bench Pokémon can be swapped in when the Active one retreats, though retreating costs a set number of Energy cards.