Posted By:
DavemriFrom Mullins site
As some of you know, there exists a variation for the 1948 bowman cards. Known as "grey backs" it appears that the red ink ran dry on some sheets of the cards and, as a result, no red appears on the cards. Red was mainly used as the background color and that is how you get the term grey back. Now, grey backs are pretty rare and actually do not fetch that much of a premium. From what I have learned from Mike R. and Howard, I have developed a new theory on how the cards were distributed. It appears that PSA won't grade grey backs because they appear to be hand-cut. The theory then would be that, generally, the sheets were not cut at the factory and placed into packs. Instead the sheets were saved by someone (because they did not pass quality assurance and were not released into packs) only to later be cut and sold as collectibles. Now, I need to do research, but I assume that the grey backs are only found in series two (you can see an example of the grey backs on macavoy's site. he wants insane prices for them and he won't get them ... but check the pictures out). Now, MacAvoy's cards are actually of an additional rarity. The backs of the cards were triple printed with some other information (e.g., moviestar cards). I have not seen a triple printed back.