Anyone have a theory on this 1970 Topps charcoal hybrid?

[Cliff Bowman]

I bought an eBay lot of Topps print error cards quite a while back just to get this card out of it which perplexed me. There have been discussions here about the 1970 Topps charcoal cards before, but I don't believe I ever saw any like this one.

[steve B]

Just a guess without seeing much detail.

damaged sheet before that one, black gets printed to the blanket, but not the cardboard that's folded up. Next sheet is fine, image prints to blanket maybe slightly off from the previous sheet because of the damage. Black prints to sheet, but the corner gets two impressions slightly off which makes the dot size of the halftone larger and that makes it appear darker.

If you look at the area you should see dots doubled a bit.

If not, then my guess is probably wrong. (It's a long shot, but if the dots got double inked in the same exact spot they could spread from overinking without appearing doubled. )

[ALR-bishop]

Great card Cliff.

[SMPEP]

What about sun faded? The whole card was originally charcoal colored but sun faded that card over time, except for one corner that was covered up.

Not sure if that theory holds water or not. But another possible explanation.

[Tripredacus]

I don't think sun fading would explain the white border between the two areas.

[Cliff Bowman]

I will try to make a better scan of the area, but it definitely has a white line separating the charcoal corner from the rest of the normal gray.

[KCRfan1]

Cliff that is really cool!