eTopps. The final dagger to collectors.
 

I’m not sure there are any collectors who remember eTopps. This was topps first foray into cards and stocks. These were cards that were sold on their site which you could keep in your portfolio and trade just like stocks. Topps idea was that most would buy these and trade these, but it became apparent very early on that most collectors preferred their cards in real life and had them shipped, except this overwhelmed topps who couldn’t keep up with shipping and storing demands. The loved to sell cards, but not actually have them physically to ship until months later.

The initial offering happened in 2000 and featured about 12 cards, football starts like Marino and Emmitt, along with a few key rookies like Jamal Lewis. Needless to say topps underestimated their servers and the website blew up. People ordered cards and then didn’t hear from topps for months. They held collectors’ money and didn’t even reset the website.

Over the years topps sold a lot of eTopps cards. In the beginning they made say 2000 of one card and whatever didn’t sell was destroyed, so some cards were rarer than others. They learned their lesson and then took orders first and then printed the cards. These were thick cards made of plastic and put into top loads and had a topps sticker to essentially seal it.

Topps fixed the problem of having to upkeep the website, store the cards, and then ship the cards, by adding a ridiculous shipping charge to this. Something like 15 dollars for the first card and 3 dollars for each card after. keep in mind guys were buying 20 and 30 at a time of the well know players. Needless to say these portfolios sat forever. Guys had spent hundreds and even thousands of dollars on these cards and there was no way you would trade or even get the cards delivered without playing a stupid amount for shipping them.

Topps held collectors’ cards for over 10 years. Today they want to close the program for good and gave collectors two options. Now keep in mind the average price of one eTopps cards was 5.99-12.99. Topps is offering store credit for 1.50 each card OR you can pay to have them shipped. First card 12.75 each card 1.75 after that.

What an absolute BS thing to do. Anyone else sitting on a portfolio?

I had a ton of eTopps cards over the years and spent a lot of time on that site. I probably gave up the last in-port cards I had 5 years ago.

I would have loved that $1.50 a card for all of the 2002-2003 junk I had at one point. Those years were like 1988 Donruss for the program.

It sucks that it's ending, but that website has been a broken relic for 12-13 years now. It's time to move on.

I will also say, I wish they had given that program the attention they gave Bunt over the years. It seems like they ran it on autopilot most years, but the bonus catalog and fantasy games were a lot of fun.

The funny thing is that with breaking/investing/flipping becoming more and more dominant, we're now at a point where digital cards should be super popular with that crowd.

You could run digital box "breaks" up the wazoo.....would be the closest thing around to pure gambling.....

Not only is this a slap in the face, it is worse in many ways than what they were offering last month if you contacted them about eTopps.

Then: $2 per card
Now: $1.50

then: magnetic cases for every card
now: supposedly nothing

then: any card from your portfolio can be delivered
now: a bunch are unavailable due to "damage"

eTopps could be more popular now than it ever was. Turn it into what Upper Deck has done with Upper Deck ePack and they'll be printing money.

Are they going to destroy the unclaimed cards? Would love them to publish the numbers that have been delivered and are out in the wild.
Check out my one and only delivery in 2013. I only paid $20. Thank you BBB. Good luck everyone looking for delivery of their cards.

This is weird, they stopped making etopps cards like 10 years ago and told you to sell or ship home. If you kept cards in your port for that long hoping they would stay there, im surprised you are surprised.

Yao was my only “IPO,” didn’t pan out.

Using your cards in a fantasy week was cool.

Considering how terrible we are at addiction and gambling, not sure why this isn’t a thing still.

[QUOTE=bcbsmartass;19988819]This is weird, they stopped making etopps cards like 10 years ago and told you to sell or ship home. If you kept cards in your port for that long hoping they would stay there, im surprised you are surprised.

Yao was my only “IPO,” didn’t pan out.

Using your cards in a fantasy week was cool.

Considering how terrible we are at addiction and gambling, not sure why this isn’t a thing still.[/QUOTE]
Somewhat true, but not completely. I've heard that ChatGPT has been hallucinating a 2013 date for this, but it isn't factual at all.

In addition, when they said that "sell" was one of the options, that broke 7ish years ago and they didn't try to fix it.

I have been in [B]regular[/B] communication with them, like twice per year, and they always say that everyone's cards are there and safe.

I have about 100 cards in my portfolio. I haven’t got any message that they are closing the program. Do you have to call them to find out or is there a link somewhere?

I have about 25ichiro rookies and 25 Bree’s rookies I’d like to get…. Rest is garbage

I have over 400 cards in my Etopps portfolio. I went thru the process on the site to have 30 cards delivered. The site was trying to charge me over $900 to have the 30 cards delivered. Apparently the site was charging me for having the entire portfolio delivered even though it said I only wanted 30 cards. Just another Topps/Fanatics cluster F!

I think I ordered 2 Lebron RCs and had them shipped to me. Believed to be my only dealing with eTopps.

Messy and awful. They’ve held our cards hostage for years with their ridiculous shipping demands and now the hostage-takers are blackmailing us. Worse than that, I can’t even get all of my cards because they’re forcing me to take a store credit for my own Ichiro card I own and I purchased for more than their credit.

Yeah, I was pretty into eTopps back in the day. Got out before they jacked the shipping price up. To be fair, it's not like Topps didn't give everyone plenty of warning when they were going to stop making new cards and that a hefty shipping price increase was coming. If you didn't ship then, that's really on you the collector, not Topps the company. Certainly wasn't a cool thing to do. I was always under the impression though that they did that (jacked the rates up) because their T&C's had them legally obligated to hold our cards FOREVER... this move now, seems like a slam dunk lawsuit... but for eTopps cards, and likely 90% of what is still sitting out there, is it worth it?

I'm glad I read this thread today. As of right now, I've received ZERO communication from Topps on any of my email addresses about this. For the 6 ports I still had login info for... 3 had no cards remaining, 2 had cards remaining and 1 account says it's been locked (I'm guessing zero cards, but who knows).

I took the store credit option on the 7-8 cards I still had in those 2 ports. I had an autographed hockey puck in there from an old reward point catalog purchase... just asked for store credit on that too. If it's a buck fitty, then it's a buck fitty, so be it. Linked both to my Topps.com account in the checkout process. Still, ZERO emails from them even confirming my selection(s). What a joke! Fanatics is just a joke! I'm scared to see the fate of our hobby in the coming years.

eTopps was an absolute blast!!!

[QUOTE=dtrainman;19988857]I have over 400 cards in my Etopps portfolio. I went thru the process on the site to have 30 cards delivered. The site was trying to charge me over $900 to have the 30 cards delivered. Apparently the site was charging me for having the entire portfolio delivered even though it said I only wanted 30 cards. Just another Topps/Fanatics cluster F![/QUOTE]

After reading this, I went on the site took store credit for 50 cards and then I wanted my brees iand ichiro cards to ship so 50 cards to ship they want $200. How could that be right?
Not sure what to do as I’m at the check out stage

[QUOTE=Master Shake;19988797]eTopps could be more popular now than it ever was. Turn it into what Upper Deck has done with Upper Deck ePack and they'll be printing money.[/QUOTE]

I honestly can't believe they haven't brought it back yet. Not sure if they are afraid of regulation or something but the amount of money they are leaving on the table not doing an ePack has to be massive. I guess they have Topps Bunt but I'm not that familiar with it.

I tried to close out today as well. Picked delivery of some cards and store credit on others. From what I can tell, their shipping program is adding in $2 per card for each selected as store credit as it came out to exactly how much the shipping is off.

I phoned Topps customer service and talked to a nice girl named Liz just before they closed for the night. Sent her screenshots of information with incorrect shipping amount.

She is going to have their technical support people look at and get back to me tomorrow. Will let you know how they are going to handle it when I hear back.

[QUOTE=bcbsmartass;19988819]This is weird, they stopped making etopps cards like 10 years ago and told you to sell or ship home. If you kept cards in your port for that long hoping they would stay there, im surprised you are surprised.

Yao was my only “IPO,” didn’t pan out.

Using your cards in a fantasy week was cool.

Considering how terrible we are at addiction and gambling, not sure why this isn’t a thing still.[/QUOTE]


I just had my cards shipped to me last year. Mostly just laziness on my part.

Well, thanks for posting this. I just "cashed" out all of mine. I wanted to get a bunch of stuff shipped for years, but those prices were a large deterrent. I don't think I had anything good, so I just took the credit.

[QUOTE=vogs22;19989073]I tried to close out today as well. Picked delivery of some cards and store credit on others. From what I can tell, their shipping program is adding in $2 per card for each selected as store credit as it came out to exactly how much the shipping is off.

I phoned Topps customer service and talked to a nice girl named Liz just before they closed for the night. Sent her screenshots of information with incorrect shipping amount.

She is going to have their technical support people look at and get back to me tomorrow. Will let you know how they are going to handle it when I hear back.[/QUOTE]

Just went to checkout for 13 cards and the total for shipping was $85. Should be $35. Let me know what they tell you.

I just emailed CS about my account. I thought they shut the entire thing down years ago. I'm pretty sure I still had cards in there, especially because I do remember the shipping being absolutely stupid and it wasn't worth it to have anything shipped. Once they did that, I think most cards ended up falling drastically in price on that trading platform they had. Didn't most fall to like $1.50-$3 range because no one wanted to pay the shipping to get the physical cards? Anyhow, will have to see if they can even help me out.

$202 to ship my 107 cards, so mine is calculating correctly. Granted, most of my cards are complete trash because i'd buy when they were low $. Several of mine are only available as credit and no shipping option. I wonder if they never even produced those???

[QUOTE=HeritageKing;19988666]

In the beginning they made say 2000 of one card and whatever didn’t sell was destroyed, [/QUOTE]

Sure they did...

Tried to log into account which I haven't been on for years and can't get in. I request to set up new password and they quiz me on which cards are in my account by havingme choosefromrandompictures. I don't remember. Just let me reset password so I can see what I have.

honestly I forgot about e topps before this thread

it was way ahead of it's time but I never really understood it or liked any of the cards they offered. Still a cool idea and not surprised our lords and savior fanatics is killing it