2001 Topps Gold Label: Box Break and Box Review

It's finally over - the entire box of 2001 Topps Gold Label has been opened, cards sorted, plenty of scans made, and now it's time to assess the box as a whole.

As a brief aside, I'm hoping to feature more box breaks on my blog in the upcoming year (so if you are reading this Topps, Upper Deck, etc. let me know).  I'm still working on the final format version but I want something that is both "to the point" but also deep enough in scope to really express what a box is (or is not) all about.  Any comments are appreciated as I fine tune the template.

Hobby Box Review: 
2001 Topps Gold Label
24 packs - 5 cards per pack

Here are the odds for the many, many parallels in the set (as stated on the packs):
(* means the set is sequentially numbered):

*Rookies Class One (1:52)
Class Two (1:4)
*Rookies Class Two (1:75)
Class Three (1:12)
*Rookies Class Three (1:175)
*Parallel Class One (1:8)
*Rookies Parallel Class One (1:529)
*Parallel Class Two (1:11)
*Rookies Parallel Class Two (1:757)
*Parallel Class Three (1:26)
*Rookies Parallel Class Three (1,807)
Gold Fixtures (1:224)
MLB Award Ceremony Jersey Relic (1:43)
MLB Award Ceremony Bat Relic (1:54)
plus a bunch of much, much rarer one-of-one type cards.

Based on the above statistics, my box did slightly better than the odds would suggest - here's the breakdown:

There are 115 cards in the base set, 100 of them are base cards and 15 are skip-numbered rookie cards (all of which are serially numbered).

The rookies are numbered 2, 19, 41, 61, 62, 92, 93, 97, 106, 108, 111, 112, 113, 114, and 115.  For some reason, Topps didn't mark card #41 as a rookie on their included checklist.

Base set: 

Of the 100 regular base cards, my box yielded 93 different cards (plus 10 duplicates and 1 triplicate).  93% of the base set isn't bad but given that I pulled 11 duplicates in total it should have been 100% complete instead.   The base set is loaded with some of the biggest names (at the time of release) in baseball.  As I opened each pack, there were only two or three packs in the entire box that had an uninspiring selection of players.  For a higher end product, that's probably a safer way to go.  For me, the clear highlight of the base set was pulling the Barry Larkin card.  And for those that are wondering, my triplicate card was of Ivan Rodriguez.  Somehow I seem to pull more cards of that guy than just about any other player of his era...

 
Rookie Cards:

The most common rookie cards are seeded at a still rare 1:52 packs (or 1 per every other box).  I was lucky enough to land a Class 1 rookie card (mine was #2.  Danny Borrell).  Each of the Class 1 rookie cards are numbered out of 999.  Mine was #620/999.  The only good rookie out of the 15 is Brian Roberts but given how rare the rookies are to pull, I'm happy to have landed any one of them.




Class 2:

The Class 2 cards are seeded 1:4 packs.  Based on those odds, I should have pulled six total from my box which is exactly what I did find.  My Class 2 parallels were of:  Bobby Abreu, Brad Fullmer, Greg Maddux, Jason Kendall, Quilvio Veras, and Shawn Green.  As a whole, the Class 2 cards have a different photo on the front of the card and a small "Class 2" on the back of the card.  Otherwise, they are the same as the Class One cards.

Class 3:

The Class 3 cards are seeded 1:12 packs.  My box yielded the expected two, in my case:  Edgar Martinez and Rafael Furcal.  The Class 3 cards feature two photos of the player, presumably the Class 1 and Class 2 photos juxtaposed together. I happen to like that the Class 3 cards actually feel like a different card (two images versus the one image on both Class 1 and Class 2 cards).  Without looking at the back, there is no way to tell the difference between Class 1 and 2 - which I think is lame for a parallel.

Class 1 Parallel:

The Class 1 Parallels are sequentially numbered out of 999 and feature the player with a gold tinted background.  They are seeded 1:8 packs.  Once again, my box delivered as expected:  Andruw Jones, Jose Cruz Jr., and Mark McGwire.   The Jones is numbered (124/999), the Cruz Jr (738/999), and the McGwire (754/999).  Given the amount of stars in the set, I probably could have done better with the player selection but back in 2001 the McGwire probably would have gone for a fair bit of money.

Class 2 Parallel:

The Class 2 Parallels are sequentially numbered out of 699 and also have the gold tinted background.  They are seeded 1:11 packs but I only ended up with two of them:  Adrian Beltre and Chipper Jones.  The Beltre is numbered 634/999 while the Chipper Jones is numbered 641/699.

Class 3 Parallel:

The Class 3 Parallels follow the same pattern as the Class 1 and 2 Parallels, namely the same design as the respective class but with a gold hue and sequential numbering.  The Class 3 Parallels are seeded 1:26 packs making them a bona fide box hit.  My only Class 3 Parallel was of Nomar Garciaparra and is numebred 066/299.

Relic:
 
There are two different types of relics in the set, jerseys and bats.  The bats are slightly more rare (1:54 packs) and that's what I ended up (along with the serially numbered rookie card) making my box ever so slightly better than average as a whole.

The Bottom Line:
Fun:  9/10  Each pack was a lot of fun to open.  With plenty of parallels, many of which are serially numbered, plus the relic hit, there's a chance for something cool in each pack.  I'm also a fan of the base card design (both front and back) which means that even a pack full of base cards was interesting to me.
Set Collector:  4/10  The set has 100 regular base cards but I ended up with a bunch of duplicates and no full base set.  The 15 short printed rookies are extra frustrating since they are skip numbered (if the were the final 15 cards in the set it'd be much "cleaner" to call the first 100 a complete set).

Collation:  6/10:  I was mostly happy with the collation, but there were two things that lowered the score.  First, the amount of duplicates without a full base set was disappointing.  Second, out of fourteen parallels, five of mine were Braves.  If I were a Braves fan this box would have ruled - but since I'm not, I would have rather have had some better shuffling of teams in terms of parallels.  I didn't get a single Reds parallel...not that I was expecting I would with only three Reds in the base set.
Value:  8/10  A quick Google search shows these boxes are still selling in the $70.00 range.  Each box will yield a fair number of parallels, plus a nice looking relic card, and there is the chance of pulling a 1-of-1 or other rare card.  However, without any rookies to speak of, nor any autographs, it's hard to justify a $70.00 price tag.  At $50.00, this box would be a 10/10 in terms of value, it's definitely more fun than your two average blasters from the retail shelves!
Overall (not an average):  9/10  One of the hardest things for a large box (20+ packs) is to maintain a sense of excitement as each pack is opened.  Topps Gold Label manages to do exactly that by inserting a variety of parallels, as well as some exclusive inserts, plus the relic card.  I highly recommend opening a box!