1958 Topps Hank Aaron - BLUE background??

[Cliff Bowman]

This one just sold on eBay for $71, it was advertised as a 1958 Topps Hank Aaron blue background error card. It's obvious that it was just a normal card that sat in the sunlight behind a glass display counter at a sports card store for an extended period of time, with a price tag protecting the unfaded small rectangle area.

[bnorth]

Originally Posted by Cliff Bowman

This one just sold on eBay for $71, it was advertised as a 1958 Topps Hank Aaron blue background error card. It's obvious that it was just a normal card that sat in the sunlight behind a glass display counter at a sports card store for an extended period of time, with a price tag protecting the unfaded small rectangle area.

At least they are not pulling insane premiums anymore. It is the first I have seen since the mass selloff from board members after they where proved to be just altered cards.

[bnorth]

I see there is another one of these rare gems on ebay. http://www.ebay.com/itm/1958-Topps-3...QAAOSwImRYG-bU

[Leon]

Originally Posted by bnorth

I see there is another one of these rare gems on ebay. http://www.ebay.com/itm/1958-Topps-3...QAAOSwImRYG-bU

Nice card. As in post 10, I don't think these are faded either. This one is a darker blue.....really kind of neat.

[ALR-bishop]

I have swung both ways on this. I have one but have come to believe most are faded. There are color gradations of the blue, but that could still be consistent with fading. If it was a sheet error there ought to be more of the same defect showing up on a lot of cards. I know there have been some.

And the number of Aaron's showing up leads me to believe some may be intentional creations.

I hope you are right Leon but I would bet money, based on the info in this thread, that most of these Aaron's are faded and that telling a legit production color defect from a faded card would be virtually impossible

But I still plan to hold onto my Aaron and Mays because I like mysteries and oddities

[con40]

All 1958 Topps Aarons are faded. Maybe the first few were unintentional finds in card shops where the octogenarian owner left his inventory in the window for a decade, but since then, several of these have popped up with different shades of blue (cyan ink).

If the yellow was truly omitted from just one card on the sheet (really?) then that blue would be just solid cyan ink and would look the same all the time since it's just solid ink.

If the yellow had been omitted from even a portion of the print plate, then we'd see more "yellowless" 58s out there. News flash.... there are no others! Hmmm, what does that tell us?

Think about the 1982 Topps "Blackless". The omission of the black ink affected 132 cards and is pretty universal in appearance on the affected cards and there are multiple copies of each card int he marketplace that all look alike.

1958 Topps Hank Aaron authentic "yellowless" is a unicorn.

[ALR-bishop]

Some 80 year old guy started all this ?

[steve B]

Originally Posted by con40

All 1958 Topps Aarons are faded. Maybe the first few were unintentional finds in card shops where the octogenarian owner left his inventory in the window for a decade, but since then, several of these have popped up with different shades of blue (cyan ink).

If the yellow was truly omitted from just one card on the sheet (really?) then that blue would be just solid cyan ink and would look the same all the time since it's just solid ink.

If the yellow had been omitted from even a portion of the print plate, then we'd see more "yellowless" 58s out there. News flash.... there are no others! Hmmm, what does that tell us?

Think about the 1982 Topps "Blackless". The omission of the black ink affected 132 cards and is pretty universal in appearance on the affected cards and there are multiple copies of each card int he marketplace that all look alike.

1958 Topps Hank Aaron authentic "yellowless" is a unicorn.

I'm not sure we can reliably say "All" although I'd readily agree to "most" or even "nearly all"

The partial sheet shown here is unevenly faded, but shows the surrounding cards. http://toppsarchives.blogspot.com/2010/05/88s-key.html

The masks used to make the plates were assembled by hand, and an error wouldn't be entirely unheard of. I'm not entirely sure if they used a photo negative of the entire sheet and masked off portions or used some other method,(Portions of a sheet more likely, individual cards possible but unlikely) but there are differences throughout Topps production. With the white/yellow team or player name cards we know that the yellow part of things was redone at least once.

Topps didn't necessarily use a strict CMYK setup, and the blue used wasn't always a straight Cyan. Going away from true Cyan means custom mixing the color, and that was done manually. So there will be different shades of the blue used. inking levels, water levels, and stuff done to adjust the thickness of the ink could also change the look.

There are a few ways a color can be missing. Some affect only part of a plate -1990 Thomas no name and the others were probably from tape blocking part of the light while the plate was being exposed. A sheet can get folded over blocking part of the print. Foreign material can get into the press blocking some portion of the print. Some of these would produce only one card, some more than one.

1982 blackless are their own puzzle. Topps at the time printed large sheets which were dual 132 card sheets that got cut down into 132 card sheets probably to make handling easier. Usually those sheets were not the same sheet but two different sheets side by side. To only affect half of that large sheet would require some odd circumstances. I believe the late 50's sheets were also printed as dual sheets as there are usually two different sheets for each series.

A genuine blue 58 Topps Aaron may be a unicorn, but may also be a findable unicorn. The hard question is how to tell for sure.

Steve B

[bnorth]

Originally Posted by con40

All 1958 Topps Aarons are faded. Maybe the first few were unintentional finds in card shops where the octogenarian owner left his inventory in the window for a decade, but since then, several of these have popped up with different shades of blue (cyan ink).

If the yellow was truly omitted from just one card on the sheet (really?) then that blue would be just solid cyan ink and would look the same all the time since it's just solid ink.

If the yellow had been omitted from even a portion of the print plate, then we'd see more "yellowless" 58s out there. News flash.... there are no others! Hmmm, what does that tell us?

Think about the 1982 Topps "Blackless". The omission of the black ink affected 132 cards and is pretty universal in appearance on the affected cards and there are multiple copies of each card int he marketplace that all look alike.

1958 Topps Hank Aaron authentic "yellowless" is a unicorn.

^^I 100% agree.^^ There are a lot of things I don't know about cards but I am an expert in this small area. I have never seen a real 58 Aaron Blue error card and that includes everyone pictured on Net54 and the ones I have seen on eBay/internet. This particular year just fades super easy.

In hand when you know what to look for they stick out like a sore thumb.

[yanksfan09]

Hello everyone. Sorry to bump an old thread but was just thinking what to do with this card? Was thinking of selling but I don't really know what to make of these blue ones.

What I know about my copy is I've had it since the 1990's,I bought it from a local shop as a teenager for 40 bucks I think (my first Hank Aaron card). It wasn't sold as any variation, I don't think any variations were known at the time. I had it for years and it's always been blue, I never had it in any light! Mine is a deep blue almost turquoise. I got graded fairly recently, had it raw for probably a little under 20 years. Seems some fall into the "every one is light altered" camp and others think there were factory issued. I find it interesting that the green ones, some have white names (with bottom words still in yellow) or yellow names with yellow team name.

I think it's a really neat card but am unsure what to do with it if I were ever to want to sell it. Just figured I'd add mine to the thread and hear some thoughts... Thanks