For much of the past 70 years, that brand name has elicited a primary association: trading cards, particularly baseball cards. In what feels like cruel irony, New York City-based The Topps Co. Inc.

Back in June, Jeff Gross was helping his wife prepare to sell her childhood home in Danvers, and they held a yard sale. An older man rode by on his bicycle, stopped to check out the wares, and soon he ...