1950 Bowman anomoly
 

What do you make of this? I am working on upgrading a very low set into a low grade set of 1950 Bowmans. In the course of the Moeller show, I probably looked at 2500 1950 Bowmans...as you know you have to look at the backs as the fronts have only photos. I ran into this Joe Page at William Chappel's table with a black overprint over all the printing that should be red. Interestingly William also had a few cards that had been hand cut from 1950 Bowman sheets. Anyone seen anything like it? Any guesses on value? I am guessing $14 because that's what I paid for it, but I thought it was kind of cool.

Try this. Take it into a dark room with a halogen light. Then tilt the card like you do to check the surface. See if the "overprinted" areas ink looks the same at the other printed ink on the card back. Usually added black ink sticks out under halogen light. Generally the original ink looks black and the added ink has more of a grey appearance.

I didn't know that there was a ballplayer named Dick Starr...

It looks like it was legitimately overprinted with black, even after closer attention, thanks for the tip. As I have spent my life in advertising, I thought it might be. Probably just some odd thing that happened with a new pressman on a Tuesday afternoon. I'll probably put it in my set.

That can't happen from a simple accident. Maybe if they put the wrong color into the press, but that would be pretty unusual. The colors are on completely different plates.


It's hard to tell, but it's possible the red has oxidized. That would also be unusual, but some inks will react to things and change color. I haven't seen it on a card, but have seen it on stamps.

Given it involves the whole back I suppose there is no real similarity to the 52 Campos black or partial black star

You can see both the red and the black so it would have had to have been a "double hit" on that plate and the black is pretty definitely laying over the red. I looked through the rest of his commons just to be sure there wasn't another one. Here's a closer look. At worst, it's interesting.