Friday Five: Top 5 Sets From 2001

It's time for a Friday post which means the top 5 sets from a past year.  This week we are going with 2001.  It was a really good year for card collecting, at least in book it was, so here is my strong top 5 products from that calendar year.  Much of the awesomeness of 2001 can be credited to Albert Pujols, Ichiro, and some really cool and innovative sets.  Here's this week's list......

5. 2001 Pacific Private Stock- So Pacific had an MLB license and they lost it in 2001.  Some people say it was a Manny Ramirez bat card that used a corked bat others say MLB was just tired of them and wanted to rip up their license for no good reason.  Whatever you believe, Pacific give MLB the middle finger on the way out and collectors were the winners.  Did Pacific have an agreement with Mark McGwire?  No, they still made a bat card of him in 2001 Pacific Private Stock.  Sammy Sosa, nope, but he's in there too.  Pacific put out their final baseball product as a per pack relic set which featured bats, jersey pieces, and patch pieces.  Many of the cards from this set can be found dirt cheap, but there are some really cool pieces out there.

4.  2001 Archives- Topps tinkered with the idea of an Archives set back in the mid 1990s when they released a rehash of the 1954 set to celebrate the legendary set's 40th birthday.  The 2001 product was a celebration of the first 50 Topps sets and featured great players from the entire run of Topps base sets.  Each player in the set was showcased on a remake of their rookie card and final card in a Topps set.  Some of the cards are an exact replica while others had a little bit of editing.  Say, didn't Jerry Koosman used to be on that Nolan Ryan card up there?  The set also featured a very strong run of autographed cards.  Some of the short printed signatures can be tough to find and very expensive to buy.  The set came out in two series and was a pretty tough set to assemble.  

3.  2001 Sweet Spot- You could always count on Upper Deck to push the envelope and this was one their more innovative sets.  It ended up sticking around for a chunk of time, but when this product came out collectors loved these autographs.  I loved these autographs.  The signed ball pieces in the middle of the card are made from actual signed balls, not sure I totally believed that, but that's how the product was marketed.  There were a lot of good modern players in the set, but also some cut signatures of players like Joe DiMaggio.  In time, Upper Deck would split this into two sets with the Classic version featuring older players and the regular Sweet Spot product housing the modern players.  Some of the later version also had some quality control issues.  

2.  2001 Playoff Absolute- This was a brand new product in 2001 too and one of the better things put out by Playoff before their run as a card company came to an end in the mid 2000s.  Each box came with a stamped autograph baseball in addition to the cards which featured loads of cool autographs and relic cards.  Playoff tried to push the envelope with this product and at the time it was a really cool and popular product with collectors.  It also was the beginning of the dreaded sticker autograph which was featured in a few other Playoff products that summer including Donruss Classics.  I collected this set for the rookies which were pretty valuable at the time of the products release.  My favorite....

The first 25 copies of each of the rookie cards was autographed, but are almost next to impossible to find anymore unless they are someone like Pablo Ozuna or someone Cory Aldridge.

2001 Topps Heritage- A no brainer and easy pick for the number one spot this week.  Topps did a great job with the first Topps Heritage set and it has become one of the best modern baseball card sets of all-time.  It launched the Heritage brand, which is not going anywhere and has become just as important as the Topps base set, and also remade one of the best Topps base sets of all-time.  The base set of Topps Heritage looks great with loads of short prints to challenge collectors and a slew of great autographs to chase down too.

Buy Local!

I live in one of the "cool" metro areas.  Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel Hill-better known as the Triangle-always makes all of those really trendy city lists.  Best places to live, most PhDs per 100,000, sunshine, colleges, pine trees, schools.  Lots to love about living in North Carolina.  Be a trendy, hip, cool city means we have lots of cool things about buying local products, making local products, local business, local, local, local.  Lots of signs like this:

Or perhaps if you live in Durham you might see a sign like this: 

and Raleigh of course has their own cool Buy Local sign too.  Everyone in North Carolina is stuck on local, but I am wondering how its possible for me as a consumer of baseball cards to buy local.  There is one decent card shop in all of Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel Hill which is far far away from my house.  The card shop which is closer to my house is not so great.  In fact, I stopped there this weekend to buy a few boxes and remembered quickly why I do not buy cards from them.  

With card shops being difficult to reach, I have been working hard to develop a few connections around Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill, Burlington, and a few other locales where I can trade and buy baseball cards.  This week I successfully bought a few cards from a local collector stepping out of the hobby.  Guy has some really good pictures too.  

I ended up with four new cards for my collection:

1999 Bowman's Best Scott Rolen Autograph 

First up is a pair of Scott Rolen autographs.  Both cards are from his time with the Phillies, but the autographs are on-card and very clean and clear.  Rolen was a pretty prolific signer as a Phillie, but he dropped off as a Cardinals, and never signed as a Red.  I think there might be a token Blue Jays autograph.  

2000 SPX Scott Rolen Autograph 

The 2000 SPX set was a really cool set.  Lots of autographs including rookies.  Rolen is not a rookie in this set, but the veteran autographs in this set include Canseco, Ivan Rodriguez, Jeter, Manny Ramirez.  Again, really good set. 

2005 Playoff Absolute Rafael Furcal Jersey/Bat/Autograph 

It's hard to believe that this guy is still on the Cardinals roster.  If only he were playing instead of Pete Kozma.  Furcal was a key contributor to the 2011 World Championship Cardinals team which makes his cards desirable for my collection.  Furcal has been a pretty big signer during his career, but this card is limited to just 50.  The card, just like the SPx Rolen, hails from a cool set.  Unfortunately the 2005 set was the final year of this brand.  

2002 SPx Winning Materials Frank Thomas/Magglio Ordonez Dual Jersey

I also picked up one non-Cardinals card.  I really like the dual jersey, multiple relic cards that Upper Deck used in the Winning Materials cards.  This was a pretty long running set for Upper Deck and they almost always made a Winning Materials set.  I did not actually see this card before buying it, but I saw several other prints and liked that most of the Thomas swatches had a pinstripe.  I went for it and got lucky.

Despite not having a local card shop I am going to keep working on buying from local sellers.  It might be a little bit difficult to do at times, but there are plenty of cool baseball cards floating around North Carolina.  It just happens that many of them are not in card shops.  

30 Year Top 50: 2001 Playoff Absolute Memorabilia

#14-This is the highest entry on my countdown list for the former Playoff company which produced the Playoff, Skybox, and Donruss lines between 2001 and 2005.  The Playoff Absolute Memorabilia set was a groundbreaker in many ways.  The set actually ran the full of Playoff's existence in the baseball market from 2001 through 2005.  One of the biggest "innovations" pushed by Playoff was the use of sticker autographs.

2001 Playoff Absolute Sammy Sosa

The Playoff Absolute set was released in June of 2001 and was widely acclaimed and extremely popular.  The boxes were high end, but one of the first innovations offered by Playoff through this release was the inclusion of a box topper which was an Official Major League Baseball signed on the sweet spot.  Really cool idea, except Playoff stamped the baseballs with a "Playoff" stamp.  If you could sit with me in the card shop while I open my box of these back in 2001 I pulled a Gaylord Perry. I kept it for a few years and then decided having a baseball stamped "Playoff" wasn't cool.  Playoff would continue to use box toppers in this product and others and they were very popular collectables and the box topper concept was copied by Topps and Upper Deck.  

2001 Playoff Absolute Tools of the Trade Cal Ripken Jr. Jersey

The base cards in the Playoff Absolute set were pretty straight forward and definitely leaned towards a more modern foil looking design.  There were inserts which came with and without relics which Playoff kept consistent throughout the entire span of Playoff Absolute sets.  Tools of the Trade was the most popular relic set which debuted in the 2001 set.  The relics cards generally ran two to three a box in the 2001 set, but they are difficult to find on the secondary market.  When the cards from the 2001 set do appear they can run a little bit higher than the average relic card of the player appearing on the card.  

2001 Playoff Absolute Home Opener Souvenirs Juan Gonzalez Dual Base Card

Base cards are generally a little lame since they are communal property in baseball and really don't belong to a specific player.  Further, card companies might chunk up a base from a game that a player played in, but might not have reached base.  Playoff did their bases in the 2001 Playoff Absolute set a little bit differently.  First, they reached an agreement with Major League Baseball to purchase the bases used int he open series of games for each time.  They dated the cards and a quick check of Baseball Reference will show you that Juan Gonzalez hit two home runs and went 2-4 with two K's in a win against the White Sox.  Of the few base cards I own this base actually has a really good probability that it was actually touched by the player pictured.  

2001 Playoff Absolute Rookie Premiere Materials Albert Pujols Base

The 2001 Playoff Absolute set also had some pretty sweet rookie cards.  They were all short-printed and all relic cards with the first twenty-five cards of each player coming with an autograph.  The Albert Pujols above is the best card in the set, but there are other quality rookies included in the set too.  For example, I originally pulled a Roy Oswalt rookie card which did have an autograph.  Some may be disappointed that the card isn't scanned and pictured above, but it was a sticker autograph.  Similar to the ball with the stamp, I held onto the Oswalt sticker autograph for a few years and grew tired of it.  I sold the card and used the money to buy the Pujols card pictured.  

The boxes of 2001 Playoff Absolute have all but dried up and many of the relics, inserts, and autographs are very difficult to find.  The degree of difficulty in assembling this set at this point would be extremely difficult, but single cards do pop up every once in awhile.  They are definitely worth tracking down and would be a great addition to your collection.  

Like the 2001 Playoff Absolute Set?  Be sure to check out the four versions of the set which were released between 2002 and 2005.  The other four sets have many of the same pluses and minuses as the original, but the set did evolve a little over the years and there were some good improvements and innovations made on the cards.  

2005 Playoff Absolute Mark Prior Tools of the Trade Mark Prior Autograph

Let's start with the negative first, since there is only one:  Sticker autographs.  I really try to avoid them and really find them unattractive.  Cards with sticker autographs, such as my Mark Prior above, might be limited in quantity or might even feature a player way cooler than Mark Prior.  However, try trading a player's autograph on a sticker and then try trading, or selling, a player's card with an on-card autograph.  On-card autographs are always more competitive on Ebay or easier to trade.  Spend a few extra bucks and avoid these cards.  

One of the best innovations made by Playoff mentioned in the 2001 write-up above was the use of box toppers in their products.  While the stamped baseball wasn't my favorite I did enjoy other Playoff box toppers like the oversized autographs in the Studio boxes and the framed pictures in the 2002 Playoff Absolute set.  

2002 Playoff Absolute Signing Bonus Mark Buehrle Autograph

While the autographs are on stickers and the jersey pieces aren't real, I always thought these were really cool looking pieces.  When have you seen anything like it?  While I really enjoy collecting the Topps cards today, Playoff was really creative and was always looking for new ways to wow collectors.  The box toppers were really cool, but they did die off after the 2003 set which featured a piece of etched glass.  They always kind of reminded me of paperweights.  I pulled a Randy Johnson which I sold.  

2005 Playoff Absolute Mark Grace Fielding Glove Autograph

Playoff also carried their creativity and innovation into their cards.  Buying a box of these cards meant laying down some serious dollars, but the best part about buying this high-end product was the fact that you always had a good chance to walk away with a really unique card.  For example, I love this Mark Grace fielding glove card.  The piece of relic is a bit odd looking and is probably a piece from the stuffing, but it's unique.  Again, when have you seen anything like this?  Not from Topps.  

2005 Playoff Tools of the Trade Kevin Brown Jumbo Jersey

Playoff was also one of the first companies that offered collectors jumbo relics.  These pieces has stitches, dirt, buttons, patches, and more.  I always thought it was awesome to offer collectors buying premium products better pieces of jersey than just the usual little square swatch.  

In summation, I really miss the Playoff company.  I understand that there are collectors who don't dig modern, or relics, or autographs, or sticker autographs, or innovation, or creativity in the production of baseball cards.  However, I never minded Playoff because there was always a market for the cards and products that I did not enjoy.  I didn't like the stamped baseball box topper in the 2001 Absolute box, so I sold it.  Same with the Oswalt sticker autograph and the same with the paper weight box topper.  Go on Ebay and see if you can find any of those items.  I would guess not and if they are there you will pay a premium.  Topps could learn a lesson or two by looking at a fe of these products.   

2005 Playoff Absolute John Buck Relic Card

My original plan included sleeping in this morning, but somehow I ended waking up early on working on my cards.  I was trying to dig out a few cards to scan for a trade I started working on last night when I noticed my relics card boxes were shifting towards ordinary.  How many Ken Griffey Jr. jersey cards did Upper Deck make between 1998 and 2010?  A few too many.  There are many players in the same boat.  I do not mind owning relics cards and am particularly interested in Cardinals and Rays, but I don't need fifteen different bat cards of a player.  So, needless to say I will be unloading a few over the next few weeks.

After cleaning out two boxes I paid a visit to one of my all-time favorite materials cards.  A 2005 Playoff Absolute John Buck Relic Card.

As a baseball fan I am completely aware of who John Buck is and his incredible .163 batting average this season.  I love the card because it is one of the most unique relics cards I own in my collection.  Yes, I have big patches and cool pieces of patches and low numbered bats and jerseys.  When have you ever gotten a shin guard or chest protector on a baseball card?  In some ways I do not miss the Playoffs and Donruss sets that overpopulated the card markets in the late 90's, but they did make a cool relic card or too.