It entered into a marketing agreement with the Topps Company in 1958, releasing several collections of baseball, gridiron football and ice hockey cards.

The name O-Pee-Chee is an Ojibwe word meaning "the Robin" as is found in The Song of Hiawatha by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

[citation needed] The products manufactured were chewing gum, mints and various types of popcorn - especially Krackley Nut.

Initially, this plant was erected primarily to supply a substantial export gum business to the United Kingdom.

In 1933, a licensing agreement was signed with a Buffalo firm, W & F Manufacturing, Co. who made paraffin chewing gum and novelties.

O Pee Chee sold Gurley Novelty candles under the name Gaybrite and TinselTown in Ireland and Scotland.

Employees, who worked at O-Pee-Chee during the war, recall the incident when a boat carrying a load of egg powder was sunk in the St. Lawrence River by a German submarine and the shipment had to be returned to London for repacking.

J.K. was a charter member of the London Rotary Club and was an active executive of the Red Cross and YMCA.

In 1958, a licensing agreement was arranged with a manufacturer in Brooklyn, New York, which dramatically increased the future potential of O-Pee-Chee Company.

About this time, another licensing agreement was signed with a large candy company located in St. Louis, Missouri.

These two licensing arrangements, which still exist today, allowed O-Pee-Chee Company to manufacture and market the products of these two firms in Canada.

Popular with kids, the standard packs included a stick of bubble gum with a stack of picture cards.

In 1970, due to Canadian federal legislation, O-Pee-Chee was compelled to add French-language text to the backs of its baseball cards.

[10] It also happened to be the year after the Montreal Expos began to play in the majority Francophone province of Quebec.

[14] From 1977 to 1989, O-Pee-Chee produced cards based on popular motion pictures including Star Wars (1977), The Empire Strikes Back (1980),[15] Return of the Jedi (1983), E.T.

In 1989, O-Pee-Chee Company moved into a new plant in London East which accommodated all manufacturing, raw material and finished goods storage, and offices and employee facilities.

They printed them and sent them to O-Pee-Chee to put the gum in them (Hockey Card Stories by Ken Reid, page 211).

In 1990-91, O-Pee-Chee and Topps were joined in the NHL card market by Pro Set, Score and Upper Deck.

After Koreen sold the company, he kept the O-Pee-Chee brand name alive in the trading card market through a license with Topps.

Upper Deck had prior maintained NHL and NHLPA trading card licenses since the 1990-91 season.

Panini America was granted a license to produce NHL hockey cards in 2010, but Upper Deck regained exclusive rights again starting with the 2014-2015 season.

Upper Deck renewed its exclusive license contract with the NHL and NHLPA in 2019, and again in 2021, for an unspecified "long term" duration.

That year's O-Pee-Chee Baseball set featured a large checklist, classic grey card stock, and a more generically vintage-inspired design.