80's Uncut Sheets
 

Does anyone here collect or have uncut sheets of 1980's Topps cards? I'm not particularly interested in acquiring a bunch of them, but I collect all things 1986 Topps and so have been on the hunt. At the National I stumbled across a guy who had an entire cardboard box (case?) of 1986 sheets. In my experience, these are the hardest to locate of all of the years from about 1981-1994. I haven't looked sheet by sheet through it, nor have I counted the sheets yet, but a quick glance showed that there are multiples of at least a couple of sheets. The cardboard box is about an inch or so thick, and has the typical stamp on the outside that came from the cardboard box vendor who supplied Topps with its cases. The box is huge, the same size as the uncut sheets of 132 cards. The sheets lay flat, and appear to have never been rolled. This was a huge find for me, and I am still quite shocked to have located it. I must have walked by there several times and totally overlooked the little sign. The dealer had some 1985 sheets as well, and I picked up a Clemens/Davis sheet for $10. But the 1986s were the real find for me. I'd be curious to know if anyone else has seen this type of packaging for uncut sheets, or has them. I would also be curious to know if anyone else has any uncut 1986 Topps sheets, and if they agree with me that that is the hardest year to find.
kevin

Now I have to check
 

I have some uncuts in the way back of my closet. Now I will have to dig them out this weekend and look...

I have a small stack of them in the corner of my card room. Mine are error sheets like wrong backs, progressive proofs, and the like and 1 full 132 count all Bill Ripken 89 Fleer.

The only bulk sale of full sheets I have seen was for 88 Score and the guy had a pallet of them. Easily a few 1000 but I could not get a deal done for them.:(

I just found a 1987 Mothers Cookies uncut sheet of Dodgers at a local garage sale. The guy gave it, and a Yaz little league bat, to me for free since my wife bought something else. One man’s trash is another man’s treasure.

So here is the box I purchased. I tried to walk through it visually. First is the box with the flaps closed. Second is a closeup of the box manufacturer's stamp, which is similar to the stamp found on other Topps cases. Third shows the right hand flap opened. There is a large piece of butcher paper on top. Below that are the sheets. Fourth photo shows the paper pulled back and the top of the stack underneath. I counted, and there are 53 sheets in total. The tape was popped when I got it, so I don't know if a few were removed or not when I got it. I can say it is a very full box. All 6 different sheets are represented I believe. There are anywhere between 8 and 10 examples of each of the sheets. At a minimum there are 8 complete sets of sheets. The 5th and 6th photos attempt to capture the look of the box from the side to show the stack of sheets. The last two photos just show a bit of the variety of sheets the box contains. With the exception of the top sheet, which has some wear on it (I assume from storage and transport) the rest of the sheets are dead flat and appear to be in great shape. The edges of the sheets show normal wear from being moved around for 33 years. The edge of a couple of the sheets have handwritten dates that appear to note a print date for the sheets.

This all leaves me wondering what this box is, what its purpose was, and what it represents. If anyone has any ideas I would appreciate hearing from you. I provided the photos to assist anyone in their efforts.

Either way it was a super neat find for me.

Kevin
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I've never seen that big flat box before. All the uncut sheets I've seen were rolled.

It's really cool, because the only reasons I can think of for a box like that is to ship them, or store them.

with handwritten dates, they could be sheets pulled to archive to represent a print run, or a days production.

OK, that's a good thought. I will look at them tonight and take a picture or two of the handwritten notations on it and you can tell me what you think. That's also why I was attracted to them -- because they were flat.
kevin

Very cool find. I believe you have found a box of uncut sheets that came from one of the third party printers that Topps used in the 80s. They printed uncut sheets then shipped them to Duryea for cutting and packing out. Looks like these ones got all ready to be sent to Duryea and either didn’t make it to the truck or possibly went out the back door of the Duryea facility.

Clemens?
 

Do any of those sheets have the Clemens/others blue streak error?

Now that would be an amazing find still in sheet form. It is Roger Clemens, Tom Seaver, and Terry Puhl. There are printed in a group with a blue streak going through a part of all 3 cards.

Looking through completed auctions a few days ago I seen a rack pack with the Seaver in the center. It would have looked awesome next to my rack pack with the Clemens showing in the center.

I don't know. I can certainly look. What does it look like?

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Here is a picture of the layout on the sheet with the blue streak. The error is the blue streak that goes through the W on the Seaver card. Then continues through the top of the X on the Clemens card and hits the border on the Puhl. I am sure there would be a few of us interested in owning a full sheet with that print error on it.:)

Uhhhh...yes!!!!

Actually
 

I would just settle for Puhl at this point. The only one I am missing.

So bad news on the blue streak front...I didn't check every single sheet, but this is what I found. Sorry!
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On a separate note, I took some shots of the edge of a couple sheets. Here is the writing. Does anyone want to take a stab at interpreting what I have? Does anyone else have sheets with similar notations?
Kevin

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Sheet 1 run 1 6-15-86 (maybe changed from 5-15-86

So its sheet 1, the A* sheet.
First press run.
6-15-86 ?

That last one is the date of the press run, probably scratched into the black plate by the press operator.

What makes it puzzling is that the cards had been out since I think January.
So this would probably be the first run by a printer they didn't usually use, or used for a particular product that came out later in the year. Maybe factory sets?

And of course, now I want to start collecting junk wax era uncut sheets.

Steve, that's a really interesting hypothesis. I remember getting one of the factory sets that were in the colorful boxes for Christmas in 1986. Maybe that's what these were destined for? Or some sheets sent to Topps for approval? I just don't think that I've seen handwritten dates written on the edges of uncut sheets before. But then again, I don't have a lot of information to go on so far. I am very interested to see if anyone else knows more. Maybe Dave Hornish?
kevin

That is what I started too, but then realized it takes up WAAAAYYYY too much real estate on the wall. So now they live in my closet. If I recall correctly, I have a Frank Thomas rookie (with name sadly), a '91 Topps sheet with some cool errors, and an '89 Fleer Ripken FF (or did I sell that one???).

They did look pretty cool on the wall though.

What the F Face, how could you sell that and not offer it to me first? :)

Space is the big reason I haven't bought more. Still I have been seriously.debating about asking the OP if he wants to trade/sell a complete set of his awesome pickup.

I thought you were the person I sold it to! :D
It must still be in the closet then. Lol.