Welcome Cubs Fans!

This blog will discuss the 1980s and the baseball card collecting hobby, with a focus on the Chicago Cubs. Contrary to vintage baseball cards, the majority of modern cards are affordable. The various sets will be considerably simpler to obtain. So, with thousands of cards in between, we'll start with 80 Topps and end with 89 Upper Deck. The apex of this period was represented by the Sandberg Rookie of the Year in 1983.


Tuesday, February 8, 2011

1981 Topps Chicago Cubs Checklist

Number of Cards

1981 Topps has 726 cards which there are 28 Cubs Player cards and 10 Traded cards.

Card Dimensions

The standard-sized cards are the following dimensions: 2-1/2" by 3-1/2"

Basic Features

The card fronts feature a large color portrait of the player with a colored border. The border color is the same for all players on the same team. The players' names are along the bottom of the card, with the team and players' positions inside a baseball cap located at the lower left corner. The Topps logo appears inside a small baseball located at the bottom right.

Card backs contain the usual statistics, headlines, and, if there was room, a cartoon. In 1981, Topps introduced three statistical categories to the backs of cards: Slugging Percentage (SLG), Walks (BB), and Strikeouts (SO). 1981 also saw the return of Stolen Bases (SB), which had been absent since 1971.

66 cards are double-printed, and several cards were printed missing the top black border.

Subsets include:

  • Previous seasons record breakers (RB)
  • Playoffs (LC)
  • World Series (WS)
  • Final appearance of team cards




Chicago Cubs 1981 Topps Checklist


Number Player
1 Bill Buckner LL
17 Cliff Johnson
54 Ivan DeJesus
78 Steve Dillard
103 Jerry Martin
136 Doug Capilla
176 Mike Krukow
238 Willie Hernandez
294 Mike Tyson DP
331 Dennis Lamp
352 Dick Tidrow DP
381 Cubs Rookies
395 Scot Thompson
429 Mick Kelleher
450 Dave Kingman DP
471 Mike Vail
492 Barry Foote
514 George Riley
533 Jesus Figueroa
553 Tim Blackwell
574 Bill Caudill
590 Bruce Sutter
609 Lynn McGlothen
625 Bill Buckner
645 Rick Reuschel
676 Cubs Team/Mgr
692 Lenny Randle
718 Larry Biittner
Chicago Cubs 1981 Topps Traded Checklist
737 Doug Bird
740 Bobby Bonds
750 Hector Cruz
756 Leon Durham
769 Steve Henderson
783 Ken Kravec
795 Mike Lum
805 Jerry Morales
820 Ken Reitz
837 Joe Strain

For the first time since 1976, Topps issues a 132-card factory boxed "traded" set in 1981. The set is in alphabetical order by player, and picks up after the base set (726) at number 727 to 858 and carries the same design as the regular issue 1981 Topps set.

























































1981 Chicago Cubs Topps Update