'72 Topps w/ Yellow Back?
 

Has anybody ever seen a '72 Topps card w/ a Yellow/Golden back? I have had this Dusty Baker card for many years, have lots of dupes to my set and this is the only one I have seen.

Anybody else have one--any player--w/ this color reverse?

Looks like it missed the Magenta color pass.

Oh, and you should ask Leon to move to Post war to 1980 section. You posted in the modern forum.

I have only seen yours, I have never, ever seen another one in the many I have looked at. And those have all been on-line.

B.T.

I've seen 2 or 3 others, I don't remember the players because it was at least 30 years ago. I do remember they were also high numbers and they were all from the same dealer.

I would take a 1972 card you care nothing about and leave it out in the sun (back side up, of course) to see if the color fades over time in the same Dusty Baker fashion.

If nothing else, it'll help give you an indication of whether or not hot plasma could've caused it to be so, or if Topps employees are to blame. :)

Agree in full, missing a Magenta pass.

Not sure how many are out there, but at least a sheet full logically, lol. About 12 years ago a guy was talking about this on CU who had 3 in a raw set. Here’s an example of a Monday he had below.

Not super valuable unless it was someone a couple player collectors would fight over. But it’s a really neat oddity.

I have a lot of doubt about there being any passes besides lack and the background color on any Topps Back until whenever they started doing color images on the back - 1992? *

I've seen scans of a yellow backed 1991 another member has, plus these few 72s.

But what I haven't seen is any card showing two background colors out of register, which would prove there were multiple color layers on the backs besides the background and he borders/text etc.

*The exception would be cards in the 68-71 range with the white backs which I think had a layer of white printed first before the two back colors.

I would have to dig in the archives to look for any registration back errors other than the common black. You have a point, but I have seen many wrong colors over the years although I do not have a perfect response for it off the top of the lid.

I have many wrong or missing color backs if I dig deep enough after 40 years of looking for this type of stuff. I'll try to remember this weekend to see if a registration issue is in there. I do not think this is a fading issue as mentioned prior. Perhaps, one of our printing experts can best describe the process used for back printing. As the orange is not a natural pure color for the printing process, could this be a byproduct of mixing the inks being affected by a low color if these are a single pass?

Here's a 64' wrong color that exhibits a similar yellow vs deep orange-

https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/Eq4AA...n5/s-l1600.jpg

And now I have seen a second one.

Thanks,

B.T.

64 Topps should be a single pass.

Into the early 1980's, many things were printed with a sort of modified 4 color process, where some special colors were printed directly from hand mixed ink. One of the expensive parts of printing then was the color separation.
The card backs wouldn't have needed that, so they would have just been photographed, the plates made, and the colors mixed by the press operator.
There was a recipe for each color, so much of each thing, with bits of other colors to fine tune it.
For 64 Topps, there was probably a red, altered with white and maybe a touch of yellow and black to make the usual color.
It was possible to mix the color wrong, making it too light, or too dark, etc. But the various examples seem a bit more extreme than would have been acceptable as "about right"
There wouldn't be any reason to do two identical plates and keep the perfectly registered. It would make the cost nearly double, but you could save some by using the same mask to make the plates.
Knowing Topps, I can't see them keeping two things registered for a day or tww, let alone several years.

From the scans I'm not seeing any signs that would make me think it was a chemical change, like something spilled that bleached it a bit. Those things usually raise the paper fibers.

If the ink was made with colorants that weren't lightfast, it's possible red could fade but not the yellow that would basically be in the same ink.
I'm not sure I have an extra 72 or 64 I could leave out in a sunny spot for a while. I know I have extra 91s...

I’ve had a couple. I considered them damaged cards, like 67’s with a yellowy back, rather than a printing defect. Misaligned ink cards suggested to me there was one color pass and thus this wasn’t a missing ink.

But I’m an idiot, so maybe this was view was false.

Based on the input, I still am leaning toward a printing error in wrong ink, wrong ink mixture, or lazy printer ran out of something and had a timeline, lol.

I just can’t buy a fade as traditionally faded examples usually lose green and yellow most. There’s also absolutely no impact to the blue from sunlight either.

If Ben who is the absolute master can fake one, I’ll buy its sun fade. But I just think they are random print errors, not any sort of variation.

All I know is I’d like to put one in my master(ish) set but doubt I ever will.

Cheers,

Butch