Standard Catalogue of Baseball cards, 14th edition, 2005

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Posted By: Ryan Christoff

"David",

It sounds like your comment was just a passive-aggressive jab at Lemke (seems to be common lately) but if it was a serious question, the answer to why proofs wouldn't be listed as an issue in the catalog is because proofs would not be an issue at all. They would be proofs. Pretty much every issue ever produced would have had proof sheets or cards made prior to the final production of the issue. But that wouldn't make it a different issue. It would make it a proof. A proof of a particular card or issue.

Why people have such a hard time understanding what proofs are is perplexing to me. If you were in the business of mass-producing baseball cards, you wouldn't just assume you had all the colors, registration, etc. right before printing X number of sheets out would you?

It might be a good idea to print one sheet out to see if everything looks the way it's supposed to. If not, you can fix it, then print another test sheet out and repeat this process until you are satisfied with the quality. There's really no reason to keep this sheet, so unless you happened to file it away for some reason, you'd probably throw it away once you'd begun production of the finished product. This is one reason for the scarcity of true proofs and also a reason for the desirability.

Maybe if the hobby started calling them "test sheets" there wouldn't be so much confusion about it.

If you want to see the "proof" process in action right in front of your eyes just change the color cartridge in your printer. Before it's ready to begin printing whatever you want, it spits out a sheet to test it and make sure everything is calibrated correctly and all colors are being distributed properly. Though this isn't a "proof" in the strictest sense in that it isn't a test example of a final product, you get the idea.

I make proofs on regular paper before printing photos on the glossy premium photo paper just to be sure the size, borders, etc. are going to be correct before wasting the good paper. I think I'll start saving these "proofs" for their investment value.

-Ryan