Little advice on a Frank Thomas NNOF

[ALR-bishop]

I think the thread on CU makes it pretty clear that the defect involved on thenThomas card affected multiple cards. Somewhere in that thread there is a complete list of the cards and even a diagram of the object that apparently blocked the ink off those cards, and it was fairly large.

There is a discussion in another thread here, actually several over time, of what is or is not a variation. One leg of that would be whether something like this was "an intentional change", or a recurring print defect on some print runs, lile the Herrer and Bakep.

Did this error occur on the first print runs of the affected sheet, get noticed, and then was "corrected". Or did it it occur in later runs and then corrected. Does it even matter ? Likely not in this case since the hobby treats it as a variation. And for me, under my personal definition of a variation, it does fit, since it surely looks like someone intentionally intervened in the print process to correct it.

Another example of this type of variant would be the 82 blackless cards. They are listed as a set and not as variations in The SCD Standard Catalog. But they are the same as the regular 82 cards except they lack the black ink. The cards can also be found with grey where the black should have been as the ink ran out. Like the Thomas, the cards were distributed in packs and are scarce. Did someone notice that the black ink ran out and "fix" the problem, or was it not noticed and the ink simply refilled in the normal process. And does it matter for purposes of classification

The Blackless cards are recognized by SCD, but not, as far a I know by PSA. Not sure about Beckett. In that sense they may be like the 62 green tints that are recognized by SCD, but not PSA, and maybe for similar reasons, since there are many cards where they are in transition with grey of faint hints of black, and overall hard to spot without close inspection

I need to stop thinking about this stuff

[savedfrommyspokes]

Originally Posted by ALR-bishop

The Blackless cards are recognized by SCD, but not, as far a I know by PSA. Not sure about Beckett. In that sense they may be like the 62 green tints that are recognized by SCD, but not PSA, and maybe for similar reasons, since there are many cards where they are in transition with grey of faint hints of black, and overall hard to spot without close inspection

Al, I think PSA must have recently started recognizing both the 62 GTs and 82 blackless, as there are some examples listed on ebay with "Green Tint" and "Blackless" noted on the flip.

[brob28]

Yes PSA has started recognizing GT's they are clearly still learning and miss-identify quite a few that I have seen. Al, I think there are around 14 1990 cards that were affected by the missing black ink, but (as fate would have it) the one that has the most dramatic change is the Thomas card. Most just have a bit of the black outlines missing, none have the player name missing except Thomas (99% sure of that but memory is not what it once was). If you google Thomas NNOF there are some great threads including one where as you pointed out someone has tried to re-create the card placement on the sheet...

BTW - don't stop, this is Variation-Hound fun!

[ALR-bishop]

Not mine. This has been on ebay a long time. It started out at a much higher price

http://www.ebay.com/itm/1990-Topps-K...item19f3e8fab0

[bnorth]

The CU thread is amazing and if anybody has interest in these cards it is worth finding and reading.

I do not remember the dealers name anymore but back in the mid/late 90's I was offered the color progressive proofs for the Thomas NNOF error. They wanted $15,000 each for them so I passed.

If I read his name again it would probably come back to me. I remember he was one of the biggest error dealers at the time and had prices several times what everyone else wanted for the same exact error cards.

[Tobacco&Gum]

Edit, just reread the thread and found the answer to my question.

Also, I think it would be cool to have a Thomas NNOF autographed where the name should be. Just a random thought.

[ALR-bishop]

Ben--that is fascinating about the proofs. That would seem to indicate the error was there from the get go and could or should have been caught before the first print runs started... no ?

Steve -- you are my printer expert ?