1975 and more Topps wierdness

[steve B]

Today I was looking at a tiny stack of 75 Topps beaters, checking to see how they reacted to the blacklight.
I noticed something I hadn't noticed before. Card 322 has a frameline around the personal stats box at the upper left.
I checked my other 75s, and that's the only one I saw.
regular 75s have it 75 OPC also have it, but the minis don't.

But I don't have a complete set of any of them, so there may be another framed one out there. Probably not, but it's Topps.

When I looked at it really closely, that's when the real surprise was found. I'd always believed all 70's Topps were just two colors, and that the dark text for the personal stats was just dark because of the green being on top of the red.
Except, on this card the frame line is black.
It's printed for sure, especially where it's on multiple copies and both Topps and OPC.

So 1975 Topps backs are three colors.

Of course this leaves me with a new problem beyond the simple one of writing down the probable UER.
On some 75s, the personal stats are very light. Looking at them in a different way now that I know that's a third color, I'm wondering if they're simply printed lightly, or if it's from printing the red over the black.
There aren't a lot of good ways to check, since there's no place on most cards where the black wouldn't be entirely either over or under the red.
Except on 322.........

Or maybe if one of the beaters has the light black I can try to erase just the red. (They're beat enough I don't mind trying. )

if there are ones where the black is under the red, that leaves the dilemma of whether to save cards that aren't really provably different unless you damage them.
Not a problem for most people, but I'm really hoping they're just lightly printed.

Steve B

[JTysver]

Just did a quick search on Comc.com and it seemed all other #322s had the frame line. I almost got excited seeing one without it but then realized it was a mini.
Can't say that I noticed any others with the frameline on it however.