Scan quality is greatly reduced when posting. Do you have a cfl bulb in a dark room? If so go in there and hold the front of the card right by the bulb and tilt it back and forth and notice how the black is still a nice dark black. Now do the same with the black on the back. The blacks front/back should look EXACTLY the same when doing this. Most black markers will look more greyish than dark black when you do this.

last one

Tough call on that one.

The black on the back would seem to be from a marker for sure. Not a printed mark.

Where it gets tough is deciding whether the green is actually over the marker. If the marker has water based ink it might be repelled by the oil based printers ink. An oil based marker would cover the oil based ink.

The second set of scans really looks like it shows some black visible under the green. What a very close look would show is if the black appears to be under because it's filling in small holes in the green.


This is the sort of thing I'd file under "cool but hard to prove" could a Topps employee have scribbled on the cardboard with a marker and that cardboard got printed on? Yes, Topps was pretty lax back then. Even into the early90's.
I have a couple cards that were marked by crayon that I got from packs. I know they're for real, but if it wasn't a glossy card with the gloss printed over the crayon It would be impossible to prove.
Another would be the two halves of a hockey card that came out of the pack torn in half. Saw it pulled, but it's impossible to prove other than that it has no other wrinkles and is cut nice and clean. I've tried duplicating it, but can't. Still a very tough thing to explain.


Steve B

Warning
 

If you do take Ben up on his suggestion, do not let anyone see you doing it or you may be asked to take some psychological tests

Over or under
 

Somewhere here there is a thread with the same issue involving a different card. If I can remember the card I will try to find the thread

I believe you are thinking of the 1961 Topps Clay Dalrymple, someone here had one with the Phillies hat colored in with a black marker, but that person was convinced that it was a legitimate variation and that it was printed that way on the sheet.

Yes Cliff that is my card. I have looked at it under every type of light imaginable. With a top lighted 100X microscope and the black ink on his hat matches the black ink in the rest of the card exactly.

EDITED to add I even soaked the card for 4 hours and tried to remove some of the black on his hat with a q-tip with no luck.

Burden of proof 2 more scans of black spots. They can be seen on the previous scan

1955 Topps #106 Sullivan
 

Here is an updated scan of the six versions of the infamous "dot" on this card. Topps must have really knocked themselves out trying to get it right.

The 1954 Bowman Roe is a well known variation caused by the signature of the player above the card spilling down onto the Roe card. There are a few other examples in the set as well.