Quote:
Originally Posted by ALR-bishop
Ebay. Can not remember if it was a Canadian or New York seller. It could be it was a one run color proof sheet. I also have one or two cards with only red and green swirls on the back. I will post one if I get a chance today
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One of the sellers promoting 1985 mini's indicates that he has correspondence from Topps which, in part confirms that more than 130 sets were issued. By his accounting Topps hired O-Pee-Chee to make the mini-test set. OPC then sold among other things, 210 sheets to a scrapper, which then sold 110 of the 132-card "sets" to a Long Island dealer. The dealer then cut the sheets in to cards.
By the dealers account, the sheets may have included 3 color progressive proofs, later shown to exist - which presumably may be where your red backs came from, Al. Of course this is just conjecture, but it certainly sounds plausible.
He also indicates that the cards were printed on normal OPC "white" stock or regular Topps cardboard stock - possibly explaining the 2 types of blank backs (tan & gray cardboard). Other accounts in a previous thread indicate some of the sheets were thrown away and retrieved from dumpsters due to smeared ink, etc.