1981 Topps Stickers

Before I collected baseball cards I had the 1986 Topps sticker book, which was how I first learned most of the players as a nine-year-old. I started collecting cards but kept up with the stickers for a couple more years. Eventually my card collection grew and grew and the sticker books were forgotten and lost. I did end up accumulating stickers over the years, and a few years ago bought a lot of all of the empty Topps books from the 80s to put my stickers in. (I still should get the Panini books.)

A couple weeks ago on eBay I saw a complete set of '81 stickers with a very low starting bid. I decided to go for it and end up winning the lot at about a nickel a sticker. I do not consider these part of my baseball card collection. But at that price it seemed relevant enough to be fun.

The photos are fun but not too different from the baseball card photos. Some interesting facial expressions, and for some reason a lot of airbrushed Cardinals.

Some good action shots too, mostly at Yankee Stadium. The Willie Wilson sticker is a reminder of the old "no pepper games" signs, something that is rarely seen on cards.

Some more fun photos I picked out. The cropping of the Tanana reminds me of the Fleer cards of the era, which generally had a little more personality and variety than Topps. (Also - you rarely see Rod Carew with a mustache!)

Putting in the stickers ended up being somewhat difficult. Some stickers came off their backing easily. On other, neither fingernail nor thin blade could fully pry them apart and I had to tape them in with some or all of the backing still in there. Putting ~200 stickers at once is probably less fun than a few at a time, but it's nice to have a complete album and to have done it myself. Here's a sample page with the pitching leaders, including two shots of Steve Carlton in throwing motion, as well as one portrait.

I actually had all the Yankees already, but good excuse to show them again along with the complete A's page.

The All Stars are a shiny fol section in the center of the book.

I already had a fair amount of stickers, so I have plenty to trade to those looking to fill their own album or incorporate them into their card collection!