1982 Topps Blackless

[Tripredacus]

Originally Posted by Cliff Bowman

On most 1982 Topps blackless cards the only things missing are the facsimile signature and the the border line around the photo. On three teams, Pirates, Phillies, and Orioles, the position is also missing. On the All Star cards the player’s name and the border line around the photo are missing. On the In Action cards the only thing missing is the border line around the photo. Some of the posters on this thread have shown both versions of the card, regular and blackless, I think that is what is confusing you.

I think what it is, is that the term is not wholly correct. What you describe is correct for what The 1982 Topps Blackless is supposed to mean, in this instance. The fascimile signature and the photo border line is missing.

However, it is not what a typical "blackless" card would look like, where the black plate was not used, or there was some error that caused that color to be missing. We can see that in the "true 1982 Topps" examples, it is not exactly the case, because black is still present in the player photos.

So that is why the term can be confusing. Certainly there would also exist 1982 Topps cards that were actually missing the black color, which then would technically be blackless, but would be different from this specific printing error known as 1982 Topps Blackless.