I agree.

Just looked at a few more of mine and noticed my Rojek also sports the red horseman. I also noticed the elephant on the Joe Tipton card is different than than on the Wright card.

And hardly any blue on the Giants logo of Williams compared to the Thompson card.

My gut tells me I could find a ton more of these but the most consistent cards that I have noticed so far, seem to the Boston Red Sox sock.

You need to compare cards of the same player. These comparing logos on different players cards are not variations in my opinion.

You have a point but I have very few (3?) dupes to compare.

What I have noticed, which makes them variations to me, is that some of these cards, although the players are different, come from the same series.

I could easily understand variations between say a Pafko and a high numbered player, (311 up) from the same team having a variation due to different printing times, but it becomes questionable to me when you see these variations in the same series.

Found 3 cards very close to one another number wise and noticed 3 different Tiger head colors/patterns.

Bnorth is correct, these aren't variations but rather anomalies, imo.

Due to however these cards were made/produced, the anomalies are quite common, and that is just looking at the cards I own.

Topps
 

If there are any really old Topps production guys out there they would probably get a chuckle seeing all the nuances we nut balls in here look for in all these cards :)

No doubt! They are likely saying, these preppies, yuppies or citiots have no clue how things were back in the day, and they should just be damn lucky they even have these cards to look at!! :D

1960 Topps 170 Del Crandall
 

Found this Del card with the limited, but recurring full and partial smudge on left sleeve.....only 1 of each left on ebay/COMC

Crandall
 

Larry-- this is similar to the defect I posted in 621. Are they a defect that faded and disappeared in print process or a correction ? . I think likely the former

Al, the first thought I had when I saw these dark and light variations of this Crandall card were the 71 Northrup card and the 78 Wills....IMO these two cards are examples of attempts (pathetic at best) by Topps to "fix" the print spot/mark. I have heard some indicate that the 71 Northrup smudge has varying degrees of darkness, but I have had numerous copies of either a dark or a light smudge , but none that were varying in shade or in between(just my experience though). The lack of a variance in the degrees of darkness of the spot/mark would indicate to me that someone at Topps tried to fix the defect and was not completely successful.

So, without having seen any other copies of the Crandall with varying degrees of darkness, it would be tough to say if it was a defect that faded or a poor attempt at a correction.

Northrup
 

These are my only 3 Northrup versions

http://i1267.photobucket.com/albums/...g?t=1471276234

Al, the two on the right are the two I have and have consistently seen over the years.....from the scan, I can't tell what the variation is on the card on the left though.

Northrup
 

I was just including the common card with the other two

That is what I thought, but with one of the world's largest collectors of Topps variations, I wanted to be sure that there was not some obscure variation I had missed on this card.

https://comimg.azurewebsites.net/i/B...zoom&side=back
1960 Topps #7 Master and Mentor with Willie Mays. This one has a brown bar on the reverse to the left of the title box that is not on any other copy on COMC.

It's not miscut, since the card is nicely centered. Must be a variation based on being on multiple sheets/different series? Anyone else have one? Is it cataloged anywhere? This would be a good one to have listed as a variation on PSA.

1960
 

Very interesting John. Either Tom or George here or elsewhere pointed out a similar oddity on two 1960 backs. Conley ( 293) and Chiti (339) can be found with an errant "Batting Record" box ( Chiti at top back, Conley lower back) The box seems to appear on both cards no matter how cut. Just seems to be an out of place box on the sheet/. But yours appears much scarcer as the Chiti and Conley both have the box but in different degrees.

The Conley has front differences as well on the insert

http://i1267.photobucket.com/albums/...g?t=1472227317
http://i1267.photobucket.com/albums/...psgvceckfo.jpg

The lovely thing about collecting print freaks is that most dealers classify them as junk. I picked these out of junk boxes at the National:

http://photos.imageevent.com/exhibit...L%20miscut.jpg
http://photos.imageevent.com/exhibit...t%20miscut.jpg

Oddities
 

You could collect hobby recognized variations, recurring print defects, one time print defects, out of registrations, wrong backs ( or fronts :)), blank backs, proofs, miscuts , or just some of the above. Sometime back I chose to stick to recognized variations and recurring print defects on the theory there has to be some limits;)

I still wonder if one searched long enough you could find a variant for any pre 1981 post war card ( The only pre war set I collect also has a variation for each card in the set:))

There is even less demand for those wuth the error on the back:

http://i138.photobucket.com/albums/q...psh8lsarxo.jpg

http://i138.photobucket.com/albums/q...pswf1azo7b.jpg

Mike

I'm almost certain that would be possible. Post 1981, say through at least 1991 it's almost guaranteed. Haven't found all of them yet, but have found differences that should affect the entire set.

Some of them of course are really trivial, or only visible with a magnifier.

Steve B

I feel sorry for Topps employees working in the print shop in this era. In what other occupation are your screw ups, mess ups and inattentiveness this well documented? :-D

Yeah, but you don't know who any of them were, unless you could identify them by the fingerprint on the 1972 card earlier in the thread. ;-)

Prints
 

Would be great to run that fingerprint through the NSA database and see who shows up,

There is Topps set that pictures a bunch of it's staff and workers...from the 70s I think

1968 Topps 154 Gibson
 

It typically seems harder to spot print variations on HOFer cards as most collectors do not have as many duplicate copies of HOFer cards as they might have with commons....here is a recurring white print mark on the front of this 68 Gibson WS card

Gibson
 

Good one Larry

Gibson
 

Good one Larry

I love drastic miscuts and if I found a Yount cut that bad in a junk box it would have made my day.

Love your phrase "Drastic Miscuts"...
 

http://imagehost.vendio.com/a/204295...MISCUT_NEW.JPG

..this is a 1954 Topps Brooklyn Dodgers hurling ace Clem Labine ; despite being off-centered and with a 'drastic' diamond miscut , there is a distinct red-orange added color to the left side of the bottom where the white border should be. The surface is mint 9. Despite all its problems it still was graded ''Excellent : SGC 60". I've heard that there are people who actually look for and collect cards like this .

..

Good one Mike. It is scarce but seems to be recurring. Found a couple on ebay with same defect

There is already one variation regarding 1972 card #619 Rich McKinney, where a small vertical blue line crosses the top right border, but there's also another one.

If you look at the orangey area between the 'Y' and 'A' in "YANKEES,' there is an errant blotch of yellow appearing there on a good number of these cards. And it's coupled with a yellow 'teardrop' which seemingly emanates from his right eye.

Attachment 245887

1972
 

Knew I had the blue bar version so assumed I needed the blotch/tear version, but turned out that was my "regular" card. So now I need a normal card :)

It is interesting how many cards there are in this thread with more than one recurring print oddity on different cards

Continuing with the theme of finding further variations of a card that already has a known variation, I present 1972 #306, Ken Boswell IA.

We know about the version of this card that has a red/orangey line cutting in front of the swinging Boswell (Whoa, that sounded weird. I have no idea if Kenny went to any key parties in the 70's). In my Errors & Variations thread in the B/S/T, I included an example of this card having a thick red streak in that same area, and I assumed it was just a random error. But now I've found other examples of this anomaly, so it is, in fact, recurring…

Attachment 246016

Boswell
 

Darren-- are there traces of red in the line version you posted as well ?

1972
 

A few new arrivals...The 63 Baumann looks like it's worn, but it's not. The Virgil is printer ink. The 65 Wood has an Orange border (not red). 63 Hansen has yellow blobbing.

I have never seen a version of the card that contained both said anomalies at the same time.

Attachment 246100

1957 #337
 

This red mark to the left of "Rene" is recurring and here are two eBay listings that have it. There is at least one more on eBay (I stopped looking) and none on COMC. In addition to these three known versions, I have two myself.

Variants
 

On the Valdes and the earlier McKinney, and a few of the other variants posted in this thread, when I went to my set to see what I had it ended up being the deviant card and I had to go out a get a normal card :rolleyes:

Old post but also noticed a red mark/line on my Phil Masi card on the upper middle border just above his head. (14 rows down on the right in my FlickR link below).

Still curious how these red marks came about on these cards, but I doubt we'll ever know?

1952
 

The Masi is recurring, printer's mark ?

Noticed it on another members card here as well.

I assume, based on where this card was located on a sheet, that that is the reason why more cards don't have them?

1972 card #337, Mike Kilkenny, appears with and without a short, thick black line in the bottom yellow area of the "S." The version without the mark is seemingly a tad bit 'rarer' than the other, but there are untold numbers of each out there.

Attachment 247118

Hmmm…Mike Kilkenny? I wonder if he's a fan of 'South Park.'

52 Topps 146 Frank House
 

The House card on the left has a Tiger logo that is nearly yellow, except for the tongue which is light red and some very light orange around the top of the tiger's head. The true variations of this card I have viewed, show the Tiger's tongue as well as the rest of its face yellow also. Is this "yellow" Tiger variation a "progressive" type of variation as there appear to be some varying degrees/amounts of yellow?

There are a couple of House threads in here somewhere where it has been argued there are several versions of this card, including a grey back yellow and degrees of red in the tongue and elsewhere on the yellow Tiger

Thank you Al, I found this old thread where you, Patrick and others discuss this.
http://www.net54baseball.com/showthr...=162102&page=5


That thread appears to contain the most up to date info on this card (except for the
magenta print defect version Ted recently showed).

1957 Topps 227 Staley
 

Not sure if the limited but recurring red print mark on Staley's glove hand has been pointed out before or not, but here it is.

It seems to also come with and without that thin black line running the length of the photo top to bottom near the right border.

Good catch on the black line too

I found the red on two of my three copies. I don't know how I missed that. Thanks for sharing.

Your're welcome...speaking of recurring red spots, here is one that I have not seen before today (although it has been previously pointed out somewhere else before). This recurring red spot is near the left edge near to the left of Ken's pic.....it appears that about 1 in 10 copies have this red spot.

Staley & McBride
 

Are there transition Staley cards, with less but some red ?

When I checked to see which McBride I had, I had both, so must have heard about it from someone previously. All you guys look alike to me :)

Of the copies I looked at with the Staley, they appear to either have or not have the red spot. So, I will go with the non-transitional variety variation on the Staley card.

1964 Topps 287 Rookie Stars
 

Here is a nice example of a progressive (Blue)print mark on Tony Cs RC

1960 #501 Schmidt
 

This one has gray smudging near his hands in the inset. On eBay I believe this is the common while the one without is the variation of sorts. The blue ink in the middle version is easier to see on the actual card.

1960
 

Just checked my Schmidt. It has no gray in border but does have the dot pattern in the blue mark...4 versions ?

Apparently

501
 

Checked mine, no gray in border but does have heavy blue dots.
Richard D

Not a variation, likely, but it is similar to other sections of missing border cards that I have seen being discussed.

Noticed on my 52 Topps Dale Coogan card that a small section of border (just left of center, top, facing you) is missing or something was laying on it when printed. I looked at other Coogan cards and noticed about <5% had it.

Mine, and the E-Bay one I found looking.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/1952-Topps-8...wAAOxygPtStJWJ

Good catch Irv. I have picked up similar border hick ups for Snider ( 37), Woodling ( 99), Scheib ( 116), Bowles ( 128) and Dobson ( 254). Some of those, Snider,, Woodling and Scheib for sure, were listed as variants by Huggins in their 1952 Super Set auction ( 579 cards) a couple of years back.

They are all recurring print defects rather than true variations, but fun to add to the set anyway

The wing tip along upper left black border seems common on all, but here is another recurring defect on that card

http://www.ebay.com/itm/191944887729

http://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/3AUAAO...Yy/s-l1600.jpg

1952
 

By the way, for collectors who do variants and autos there is an autographed 52 Campos black star in the upcoming LOG auction. It is from a large collection that was found here in San Antonio a short while back

I agree, just anomalies as I like to call them.

Thanks for the info, Al.

The 110 signed 52's would be a nice addition as well!! :)

It will be interesting to see what both lots go for?

Got this awesome 73 Topps Al Kaline Band Aid card in the mail today thanks to a great forum member.:)

http://img.comc.com/i/Baseball/1973/...&size=original
1973 Topps #264 - Checklist
Courtesy of COMC.com

Bobby at #145 scratched out. Multiple cards on COMC show this flaw.

Cls
 

Good one John. I know there are at least two version of every CL in every 1960s sets, I think mostly because they are all DPs. Most differences are minor. Not sure if that holds true for all the 70s sets, but have several

Green Uniform???
 

At first glance, it appears that some kid at some point neatly colored in this jersey a green color. However, the only thing I can not figure out is how they were able to color the jersey and not color over the facsimile autograph? Looking closely at the card, the facsimile auto is clearly on top of the green and not the other way around.

Any ideas?

colored jersey
 

Something similar from 1972 ?

http://i1267.photobucket.com/albums/...ps2ef7bed9.jpg

The thing that clearly points to an artistic kid in my mind is the fact the colored ink (or whatever) crosses over the white border at left and at bottom. If it was intentionally printed this way at the factory, that shouldn't have happened. I know, I know, some people will say that sometimes it happens that way, I get it. But my money is on the kid. :)

Al, this "coloring" is mostly limited to the jersey, similar to the limited coloring on just the glove of this 70 Lockwood card.

As Darren points out, the coloring goes over into the white border area. It also goes over the "Pirates" on the jersey on the front. The lack of uniformity in the color makes me skeptical, even though the facsimile auto appears to be over the greenish-grey color.

1962 Santo #170
 

I noticed a right angle line at the top right in this card. I checked COMC an many eBay and they all have it. Has anyone seen this withOUT this line? It only occurs on the non-greenie.

That line up there is one of the tells showing that this is the 'normal' version of the card and not a green tint. (If you look closely, a similar area appears in the top left area, too.) It seems that Topps used a lot of scotch tape (that's what it looks like to me) when laying out the sets that year and many, many of the cards show pieces of it here and there. Almost none of the GT cards have these tape problems. Just a few. And no cards have the same piece(s) of tape appearing in both the regular and GT versions.

It's most prevalent in the Cunningham card…

Attachment 253732

Great stuff Darren

That's exactly what it is, Scotch tape.

The color separation negatives were scotch taped to the mask, a big sheet of opaque paper, to make what was essentially a huge negative used to make the plates. Sloppy work let the tape show on the image.

It's also on a lot of 81 Fleer.

Steve B

Perhaps the most egregious display of a wayward piece of tape is found on the Babe Ruth Special card #142, right above the red book. They didn't exactly try to hide it...

Attachment 253889

The Campos Top Border variation seems to have this variation also. A small percentage of the full border cards appear not have a full border.

Coogan
 

Here is a closeup of three Coogans showing different hiccups.

They all look like something was on the printer (dirt/dust/lint) when they were printed.

Not sure what happened to the Campos with a large section of the top border missing though?

1968 TOPPS 282 Rick Monday
 

Speaking of border breaks, here is a limited but recurring (right) border break that I have not noticed before.

Observation
 

Are my eyes deceiving me or do the Spahn cards with the blue mark have his face darker than the ones that do not? Any reason for this, if so? The three cards on the right vertically all have blue dashes while the ones on the left do not. The three birthdate versions are present with 1931 at top, obscured 1931 in the middle, and the correct 1921 at the bottom.

More mysteries.

1975 Hostess #48 Carl Yastrzemski "outfield" and "infield" variations. The "infield" version is much more difficult to find, but I don't think it is as rare as the corrected cards of Doug Rader and Burt Hooton.

1957 #406 Hale
 

This smudge on his left cheek is recurring and there are a few of these on COMC (two for sure) and eBay (at least one-my eyes aren't too great).