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Originally Posted by West
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I've looked at a bunch of stuff, and I think it's real too. I also have it on good authority that fading black without fading the surrounding ink is very difficult.
I actually can't figure out for sure what caused it.
The others are almost certainly from a big bit of debris, probably tape obstructing the plate while it was being exposed.
If it wasn't then, the next likely problem is a bit of debris in the press preventing that part of the plate from being inked. But the most common of those would be a bit of paper, which of course gets inked, transfers, and looks totally different.
Maybe a bit of saran wrap type stuff? That should take ink too, but might not. Usually to repel ink the obstruction has to also hold enough water.
Most stuff like that is very transient, not usually hundreds or 1000+ impressions.
If it's something blocking the inking, then this could be within the first few impressions. Maybe in the first 5? I have a card that has an additional 4 uninked impressions, so it can extend that many at least.
But there doesn't seem to be a shadow of the border, which I'd think should be there.
I can't think there was enough damage that a strip of plate got ripped out. With the pressure required, I'd think the underlying cylinder would have been inked but printed poorly.
It could be a different blue plate that for some reason had the name on it when the rest didn't. That would be pretty strange, but then, it's Topps...
Fortunately, the card has clues!
There's a line from what's probably a plate scratch right near the left of the name plate. If it's an on-press obstruction, there should be cards with the same line.
Unless the plate got changed right after the obstruction.
And Topps wasn't great with registration, if the blue plates ever had the name on them, there should be cards misregistered showing a blue shadow of the name alongside the black printed name.