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Description:
Beautifully engraved Certificate from the famous Topper Corporation issued in 1973. This historic document was printed by the Federated Banknote Company and has an ornate border around it with a vignette of an eagle. This itemhas the printed signatures of the company's officers and is over 27 years old. Below is an article from Sports Illustrated printed in the Fall 1970 discussing the toy war between Mattel and the Topper Corporation Hot Pace in a Big Mini-Race Never mind Indy, the real drive is for a $150 million market in tiny cars, with a whole world of kids hanging on every high-speed turn. by Robert H. Boyle It is a rivalry like no other. It has elements of GM against Ford, Army vs. Navy, Hertz vs. Avis, Macy's against Gimbels, yin against yang, aspirin vs. Bufferin. The Great Toy Auto Race is on! In this lane, revving up with Hot Wheels and Sizzlers is Mattel, Inc., the biggest toy company in the world, with an annual gross of more than $300 million. In the other lane, at the ready with Johnny Lightning's, is Topper Corporation. The prize at stake is a $150-million-a-year market composed mostly of kids from 4 to 14 reaching up to the toy counters at discount houses or Pop's stationary store, dollar bills clutched in hand, saying, "Gimme that Hot Wheel" or "I want that Johnny Lightning." On such decisions fortunes turn and companies retool. American youngsters who may be the champion consumers of all time, have an extrodinarily wide choice of toy cars. Cars have supplanted the electric train sets that tooted around the christmas trees of yesteryear. Like their adult counterparts, the kids want cars, cars and more cars. There are Aurora's Model Motoring, Ideal's Mini-Motorific, Kenner's SSP, Strombecker's and other so-called slot-car racing sets, but the big bonanza is in miniature die-cast cars with low friction wheels, such as Mattel's Hot Wheels and Topper's Johnny Lightnings. Mattel has the biggest share of the market, with Topper a distant second but coming on fast in recent months. The Great Toy Auto Race between Mattel and Topper is being fought on all sorts of fronts, involving the television screen, cereal boxes, buttons, patches, coloring books, and other hoopla galore. Mattel spends more on advertising than such industrial giants as Standard Oil of California, Royal Crown Cola, Sun Oil, Delta Air Lines, Armstrong Cork, or ing-Temco-Vought, and Topper is not far behind. In fact, Topper goes in for the hard sell with such a vengeance that almost a quarter of its gross is poured back into advertising. In the field of auto sports Mattel and Topper are having a wicked go at each other. Both companies have discovered that kids like to identify with real-life race drivers. Mattel is big in hot rods. It is backing Tom (Mongoose) McEwen, five-time holder of the national speed and elapsed time drag records, and Don (Snake) Prudhomme, 1969's hot rod driver of the year. It has tied in with Grand Prix models and the National Hot Rod Association and has sponsored the Hot Wheels Supernational drag strip championships. Scratching and scrambling to stay in the race, the rival Topper Corporation is sponsoring the Parnelli Jones racing team and last May pulled off a fantastic coup by winning at indianapolis with the Johnny Lightning 500 Special, driven by Al Unser. As a result, Unser has come to be regarded by kids as Johnny Lightning himself, and whenever he shows up at a store to plug the Johnny Lightning toy cars he is surrounded by a horde of boys. "East Paterson, New Jersey, two thousand kids!" exults Bob Perilla, Topper's public relations man. "Two Thousand!" All this causes some people at Mattel to groan quietly in a corner. Mattel had the first chance to get Al Unser for Hot Wheels, but turned him down. Mattel has had promotional victories of its own, however. Last February the Chamber of Commerce and the Junior Chamber in Siginaw, Mich. sponsored a Hot Wheels Derby in a local shopping mall. There were more than 1,700 entries and a crowd of 6,000 showed up to watch the finals in which Hot Wheels cars raced down 250 feet of track from an eight-foot-high starting tower. In May a Hot Wheels Derby in Niles, Ohio attracted 850 entries and a crowd of 10,000. As a result of all this, the Saginaw Chamber of Commerce, with happy cooperation from Mattel, is sponsoring a National Hot Wheels Derby Championship for 1971. After local and statewide derbies are run off in shopping centers all across the country the finals will be held in Saginaw, with plenty of prizes. Never one to lag behind, Topper is involved in Johnny Lightning racing competition with the YMCA, which ordinarily eschews any activity smacking of commercialism. Boys interest in toy cars is so intense, however, that more than 900 Y's have signed up, and each of them has been presented with two free Johnny Lightning New 500 Le Mans Raceway sets by Topper. There will be branch, citywide, regional and national finals, with the grand prizewinner and his family getting an all-expense-paid trip to the 1971 Indy 500 as Al Unser's personal guests. This personal touch, the signing of real hero drivers to promote toy cars, finally got to the Aurora people, who are anxious to join the race with their own Model Motoring setup. A few weeks ago, in a bold promotional stunt, they staged a mock race on the Ed Sullivan television show. Did any real kids get to play cars? No. T
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Reference#: topcorfamjoh |
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