2001 Topps Baseball Forum

     After a 10 year hiatus from baseball card collecting, I rediscovered the hobby shortly after leaving the military during the aftermath of 9/11.  It was a time when demonstrations of patriotism on the field was at an all-time high, which allowed baseball cards the perfect substitute to the void I first experienced after leaving the military.  The hobby had changed significantly in those 10 years that I was away.  Instead of celebrating 40 years, Topps was celebrating 50 years of baseball card production.  Inserts, parallels, and retired cards were somewhat of a new concept to me, as well as foil packs without bubblegum.

     Since the 2001 Topps set is the first set that I collected after rediscovering the hobby, it has a sentimental value to me that is only surpassed by my first 5 sets that I collected as a kid from 1987-1991.  One of the biggest issues with this set is that the cards stick together and peel the surface worse than any other Topps base set that I've ever seen.  People have also mentioned problems with the 2002 Topps factory set sticking, but I haven't noticed much difficulty pulling those apart undamaged.  Sealed factory sets of the 2001 Topps are pretty much useless these days--and would be a bad purchase decision.  This only leads to the 2001 Topps set becoming more rare in terms of collectible grades.  The best way to collect this set these days is purchase cards that have already been removed from its factory packaging, and have either put in pages or have been placed into an 800-ct box.  There is a difference between the coloring of factory cards (darker) opposed to cards pulled from packs (lighter).  Also, ask the seller if there is any surface damage on their cards from pulling the cards apart just to be sure.  

I sold off my original 2001 Topps set about 10 years ago, and then decided to repurchase that set in the factory box about 5 years ago.  Half of the cards were damaged.  Thinking the damage may have been due to improper storage, I purchased another factory set last year to upgrade my damaged set--same problem.  I sold off the worse of the two sets deeply discounted and being sure to advertise the damage.  Recently, I found a deal on 4 complete hand-collated sets (undamaged) that I'm now using to upgrade my personal collection of 2001 Topps.  What can I say, but I like the set.  

What are your thoughts on this set, and card collecting during this era?

Totally agree that the cards sticking together is a giant pain.  This was the first set I started collecting after an eight year hiatus, and I'm just glad I put my singles in a binder.  I thought the sticking together was due to my keeping boxes of cards in my garage.

Not sure I have any others from this set besides a couple Ichiros. I like the design though, and a lot of other base Topps sets are some I wish I had paid more attention to.

Know about that sticking problem from other sets though, not a good feeling. Matte finish is really better in the long run, but I know the gloss helps the images pop a bit better.

I have thousands of ruined glossy cards in my collection, and it disgusts me.

Looking through the 2001 set and I noticed the checklists, 4 from Series 1 and 4 from Series 2, aren't listed. If someone could create them that would be great. Also I noticed there is a parallel set called "Employees". Can someone tell me what the difference is for these cards?

thanks!

That problem with glossy cards actually started to really be noticed in the hobby in the mid-90's, especially with Stadium Club, Fleer Ultra, Pinnacle and Upper Deck. It still surprises me that it took the card companies so long to notice it originally and that it is STILL a problem today. The good card-storage companies (such as Ultra-Pro) have done everything they can to minimize the problem of cards sticking together or to their pages/penny-sleeves/toploaders, etc. What makes the damage seem worse is when you buy a set that was either kept unsealed in the factory box, kept in packs, or was put in sub-par pages. Usually, those were stored in hot and/or slightly damp warehouses, basements, attics, and storage buildings/units. There's really nothing you can do about past storage options.

As for the 2001 Topps design, I really did like it. It was simple but modern, and had what you should expect from a base set of cards at the time. It won't be much longer before that design is part of an Archives or Heritage set. I'm not saying that in a good way though. No designs later than 1990 should be in those sets at this point. I know they've already used designs MUCH newer than that for those sets, but I still don't see how those sets deserve the names "Archives" OR "Heritage" with designs that aren't even 20 years old. When you have over 60 years of history for a company, those two brands shouldn't contain designs from the past decade or two. Just my two cents as to why I stopped even being interested in those brands many years ago. I'll stop typing now.

The employee set was issued in factory sets with a special embossed logo on the card. 

2001 Topps is one of my favorite sets but like everyone has mentioned, it is one of the worst for cards sticking and 9 times out of 10 when separated, they are useless. 

Looking back 16 years, I'm sure glad I chose baseball as my sport after returning to the hobby in 2001.  The number of NFL protestors against our police, national anthem, and American flag since late 2014 only seems to be growing.  I'd hate to be a football fan watching games today on 9/11.  God bless the friends and family of those who lost their lives on that fateful day. 

I have the LE Factory Set with no issues. However, I did get some sealed 2003 packs, and had many issues with the peeling. For individuals, I have a signed Jose Rosado, former ROY, a few golds, and more. I like this set too, one of my favorites, even though it was produced just less than 2 years before I was born.

Oh, if only this post was a  couple weeks ago. I recently ran into this very issue. Seeing that I'm playing catchup after selling off everything 15 years ago I too bought the facory set. It was one brick in there, not even smaller chunks. The ENTIRE thing was stuck together. I eventually got it down to four smaller chunks, but the single cards that eventually fell off were tore up. Yep, research afterwards confirmed everything.

I've bought FS for each year from 87-02 so far wih only this one and 94 having this issue. Some of the others have had sticking issues, but careful work has salavged all those cards. This one though.......