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In 1956, just after they had dispatched rival Bowman to the commons bin of history, Topps began experimenting with their baseball card sets.
And why not?
When you’re the king, the only game in town, you have little to lose by flexing your artistic muscles.
One of the innovations they unveiled in that first spring of the monopoly years was the team card, wherein all players for a particular club were gathered together for a group photo that adorned one of Topps’ cards for the year.
The team card would become a hobby staple over the next 25 years, and maybe no franchise enjoyed a strong association with the concept in collectors’ minds than the Chicago Cubs.
Although the Cubs didn’t win many games over the next quarter century, they were always game to help Topps spice up — and weird out — their team card subsets.
Here is how the Cubs turned, together, during that long stretch of cardboard history.
1956 Topps Chicago Cubs Team Cards
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The visual links between this card and the rest of the 1956 Topps set are subtle — the horizontal layout, the black bar that’s reminiscent of the player name and team name bars on base player cards, the thick all-caps block font. Otherwise, you’d be hardpressed to tie the two together based on solely card fronts.
It’s fun to see the Cubs logo on the team card here, though, especially since it was missing from player cards that year. And the player and coach roster list at the bottom is a useful, though space-eating tool that was repeated only one other time on Topps team cards.
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1957 Topps Chicago Cubs Team Cards
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The 1957 Topps set features a clean design with gorgeous full-color photos that has made it one of the classic issues of all time. Topps continued their focus on the “picture” with their team cards by encasing each club within a picture frame and bolting on a “nameplate” to let us know who we’re looking at.
They even included a thick white border to eat up the real estate they freed up by dropping the roster listing.
Bonus!
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1958 Topps Chicago Cubs Team Cards
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This is another design that bears little resemblance to the base player cards of the year. While Glenn Hobbie and his teammates appear in profile against a solid colored background on their individual cards, they all gathered in Wrigley Field to get — drawn? painted? There’s definitely some sort of artwork going on with the team sot
The baseball in the lower lefthand corner is very 1950s, and the key/roster makes a brief return to the card front. Enjoy it while you can!
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1959 Topps Chicago Cubs Team Cards
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Now, this card looks and feels exactly like what it is — part of the 1959 Topps issue. The pale green background, script team name, roundish cartoon Cub, and rendered players all scream 1950s kitsch.
And the big yellow moon in the background adds some much-needed romance to a team who went 72-82 in 1958 and would finish 74-80 in 1959.
1960 Topps Chicago Cubs Team Cards
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If you saw this card sitting on a shelf somewhere, what year would you think it was made? 1956? 1960? 1964? And who made it — Topps? Fleer? Leaf? Bowman?
Any of those would be good guesses, because there are almost no visual clues to let you know this gaudy swatch of cardboard hails from the 1960 Topps set, aside from maybe its landscape layout.
But then, aren’t most team card stretched out horizontally?
Regardless, the 1960 Topps Cubs team card does a good job of capturing the feel of the era, from the diamond-shaped “CUBS” designation at the bottom to the red and yellow shapes that would have looked right at home on the floor of any chic 1950s kitchen floor, to the painted(ish) players.
All around, it’s an ugly but beautiful monstrosity of a card.
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1961 Topps Chicago Cubs Team Cards
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Aside from the stark yellow background, this card looks like it belongs to the 1961 Topps set — which it does.
Borrowing the two-box format of the player cards, Topps just turned their base design sideways, added a team logo, and slapped on a cutout of the team photo.
Lots of color and that adorable Cubbie make this card stand out, though the team itself could stand about a 50% zoom so you wouldn’t need a magnifying glass to see the (blurry) faces.
1962 Topps Chicago Cubs Team Cards
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In 1962, Topps continued their newfound tradition of matching the design of their team cards to that of their player cards, which in this case meant those iconic/hated/misunderstood wooden borders.
Also returning were tiny player images set amid a desert of solid color — red for 1962 — and the typical landscape layout.
In fact, also also returning was the same exact Cubs team image as Topps used in 1961. Cut down on someone’s expenses, I suppose.
Gone, sadly was the Cubs logo, replaced by a black oval with “CHICAGO CUBS” in white block letters.
1963 Topps Chicago Cubs Team Cards
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