The 2001 Topps set is in a factory gold box and sealed.

Topps became aware of the bricking issue in early/mid-2001 as they received a lot of complaints from collectors. By then it was too late to remedy the issue. I remember their VP telling us he was heading to the printer to look at new paper samples for 2002. Paper is usually purchased ahead of time so it's available without delay at the time of printing. Not much could have been done without throwing out all the paper and severely delaying series 2.

I'm curious as to how many Ichiro Suzuki rookie cards actually survived the bricking. Looks like theirs only 208 PSA 10s. I wouldn't trust buying one RAW. That's why I picked up his Upper Deck RC instead.

Yes, the cards getting stuck together is a big problem with this set. And to think that this was Topps 50th anniversary set which should have by all accounts made it one of their finest sets of all time. But alas, it went out the door with this major defect which now renders any factory sets that are still sealed having been transformed into cardboard bricks. I wish there was a way to warn potential buyers of these factory sets of this major flaw.

I opened a few boxes of these back in the day and made an almost complete set out of them. And even though I stored them somewhat loosely in a storage box, they still managed to get stuck although never to the point of causing any damage. They still had to be carefully separated due to the unforgiving green borders being easily nicked. I actually still have a sealed box of these and I'm wondering if the packs inside have now been turned into "mini-bricks."

Two other things I don't like about this set are the facts that there is no player position on the front and that the foil lettering is difficult to read and seems to have been applied unevenly due to the inconsistent resolution of the lettering. There is a card of Orlando Hernandez that highlights the uneven application of the foil in the name lettering since the space where the name should be is blank.