My name is Ben and I'm a junk wax junkie
 

Hi everyone,

I wanted to share some interesting junk wax finds. I've been trading online since 1999. My id is always benlee66, including on ebay.

Apologies for the cluttered post.

-I'm very curious if anyone has ever seen a '70 Munson RC like the one with white letters. The card doesn't appear to be damaged by exposure to light.

-Confirmation that the Ramon Martinez Topps is a true white box?

-Pulled the 1990 Donruss print errors from one of a half dozen rack cases.

-Delino Deshields a Jeff King lite?

-Seems that I've seen another copy of the discolored Dempsey on COMC at one point.

-1990 Fleer print flaws from cello.

*Kirby Pucket 1987 Topps planchet error? Anyone seen anything like it?

!!! 1976 Topps Mike Schmidt NNOB. I'll post two other 1976 cards with lesser degrees of green bleed. All were found together. Steep price paid ;). I was actually given a small 60/70s collection form a friend's dad. Never noticed it until a year later.

The Munson does look like sunlight damage to me; how did you rule it out?

Variants
 

Ben--- welcome aboard---tend to agree with John on the Munson. The Schmidt is a great item. Here is the King you mentioned

https://s3.amazonaws.com/hires-aviar...a55f3732eb.jpg

Here is an example of what is likely light fading

http://i1267.photobucket.com/albums/...539/img366.jpg

100% agree on the Munson being sunlight damage.

Welcome to the forum and nice group of printing errors.

Welcome to the forum, Ben!

One man's junk wax is another man's treasure.

:)

Thanks guys. Glad to have found this board and look forward to sharing finds.

With the Munson, there is no fading on the other colors. Just the yellow is missing. Notice how the back of the card is extra yellow. Perhaps that sheet wasn't flipped over and the back was pressed twice on the yellow plate?

I'll post pics of the other '76 green bleed backs I got along with the Schmidt. How is the name missing but the stats show? It got some black ink.

I really think that the Munson is not faded. The letters are clearly magenta (not red). Red is created during the printing process by adding yellow ink to the magenta ink. I think if it were a matter of fading due to light exposure the other inks should have faded as well to some degree. Yet you don't see that. You can also see that the photos in the card with white letters do not contain the yellow ink giving them a 'faded' look.

I'm wondering if it is a color correction proof card or just a rare error that got through quality control. Does anyone know if they made color correction proofs with the backs printed?

Very cool card nonetheless.

Have you guys every seen anything like the Puckett? I collected coins for a while and reasonably knowledgeable about the minting process. Not so much with cards. Are metal plates used? Is it possible that the plate developed a crack where that top black border is?

Thanks for any insight,

Ben

Printing Presses
 

I leave how it happens to those like Steve who know more about the print process, but I have a bunch of cards in different sets with similar recurring print defects

The Pucketts make an interesting pair. I haven't checked mine to see if I have one.

The overall process is different from coins, in the late 80's it was closer to photography. I'll give a brief description later.
Which of course ended up being way longer than brief.....:o

The one without the line in front of the helmet was probably from a plate corrected on the press.

The one with the line and the gap in the border is what's interesting, because of the process. And it makes me think there's at least two other versions.

The overall process is
The original art is made, usually a pasteup with the pictures etc pasted to a piece of heavy cardboard.
That then gets photographed using a huge camera - The negatives can be maybe 16x20, maybe bigger depending on the camera. The place I worked didn't do stuff like cards, and the largest press took 35 inch wide paper. Topps printed the sheets two 132 card sheets side by side, so they may have had a larger setup.
Each bit of art gets photographed through three-four filters to make a set of images. Black, blue(cyan), Yellow, and pinkish red -magenta. Images become halftones made up of a field of dots. Some printers do solid colors this way as well, Topps didn't (Usually)

The negatives are mounted to a "mask" a sheet of opaque paper or plastic. They're simply taped on, a lot of 81 Fleer show the tape in the picture.

The easy way is to have holes for the image to be visible, as the camera picks up any dust etc in the air too. Dust shows as a white spot on the negative and will print as a dot if it's not masked out. I spent a week painting over those spots when the camera guy had a bit too much "liquid lunch" and cleaned the camera room just before imaging an entire booklet. Picture sitting at a light table with a bottle of red whiteout -8 hours a day for 5 days. The whole department was involved and I got added since they needed more help. (The shop really was into cross training, the only thing they didn't let me do was run the paper cutter. )

Then four plates get exposed just like big photographs, aluminum with a coating similar to limestone. Some areas get etched and filled with a substance that repels water. The rest stay porous and retain water. The ink is greasy, so it only sticks to the parts that aren't wet.

-------------
Puckett related - If the negative gets blocked by something, a bit of debris, tape, whatever, the image won't develop. That's probably what caused the border gap. A scratch in either the negative or in the plate will also print. some thing that made a dark spot on the negative could have also made the border gap. And that seems the most likely explanation.
So the border gap could have been fixed by the press operator scratching the missing bits into the plate, or by someone making a similar repair on the mask for the black plate.

The line in front of the helmet -if it's only black could either be a scratch on the plate, OR a scratch on the mask.

If it's on the plate there should be examples with the gap but without the line.
That there's a copy with the gap repaired, but no line means the fix happened at different times for each flaw.
The scratch was probably on the plate. Maybe a deliberate mark to point out the border flaw? Maybe not.

Or alternately, the line is from some bit of debris that damaged the mask, and caused the border gap at the same time. Thumbtack? Could have scratched the mask then blocked part of the image. Later plates from the same mask might show the scratch without the gap. If so, the only way to fix the scratch would be to replace the part of the mask that's the picture. So there might be a card with different cropping or a the picture screened differently if they didn't have spare negatives.


------------------

Back to process.
The plates are mounted to a hard cylinder, and transfer ink onto a sheet of rubber on another roller called the blanket. Cracked plates do happen, but because they're mounted to a solid steel roller as backup, they rarely happen anywhere in the image area.

Stuff can get into the press and damage the plates and/or the blanket. A damaged plate would print as a line, a damaged blanket would leave a white area. Neither of those is at all common. The only example I have is a T206 that took me a long time to figure out, as the 1910 process and presses were a bit different. (That was right around the transition from flatbed presses printing from large slabs of limestone to rotary presses printing from metal plates. )


Steve B

Munson white name
 

I found this less extreme example flipping through some '70 Topps.

Steve, thanks for the great info on the printing process. I can't say I've digested all of it yet, but it's a big help in understanding the little differences in the cards and how to categorize them.

Here are a few more pics for your error enjoyment:

1. Puckett 87T border break (progressive)
2. Clemens 87T AS eagle ink variations
3. 88T Pirates TL w/spot above Bonilla's head
4. 90T Deshields yellow spill over name (progressive)
5. Topps Tribute misprints
6. Fisk blue line under White Sox logo on first card
7. Bonilla DK with printing error (looks like paper loss, but card is not damaged)
8. Tim Teufel missing letters
9. Omar Moreno's disappearing jersey (progressive)

Also check out the pics I just put up on the 1991 Topps error thread of wrong background (player with manager's background and vice-versa). All hype aside, these could be incredibly rare. Tons more later.

1. Canseco with booger print spot
2. miscut Canseco
3. one of the '76 cards with green print bleed I got along with the Schmidt

Eagles and Omar
 

Several of the All Star cards have defective eagles. Someone posted Omar elsewhere and it can be found with a lot of differences in the black ink around the dugout, his bat and his hair. I think I learned about the Bonilla spot defect from Richard Dingman's lists.

I think I might have to get scanning some of the errors I have.

Scans
 

Yes, Steve, you need to get at it :)