1990 Topps Jeff King

[ALR-bishop]

Agree that if it had not appeared in the Catalog briefly it would just be another recurring print defect. Disagree it was against “protocol” when it went in the Catalog. There was not then nor is there now a standard definition or “protocol” for what constitutes a variation.

With the Catalog getting huge ( before dropping post 80 listings in 2011) Bob stated in an SCD article he was narrowing his definition of a variation to an intentional change in a card by the manufacturer. He removed the King and some but not all border gaps and began restricting what new variation listings he would put in the Catalog. I would argue that given his position and standing in the hobby Bob was the “protocol” in that time period. The grading companies generally looked to him as to what to include in their master checklists

A whole different discussion or debate could be had about how it can be accurately determined in all cases if a recurring print defect was intentionally corrected or just ran it’s course.

No matter what limitation anyone personally adopts as a definition of a variation the hobby, or in some cases now PSA ( 61 Fairly ) decides, protocol or no.

And no doubt the 57 Bakep, the 58 Herrer and 52 Campos black star might not pass “protocol” today. The 52 House ?

In the end the hobby decides and value attaches based on the level of recognition. Although today with the demise of the catalogs, PSA and the registry master checklists may be the real arbiter

For myself, I generally agree a variation should be limited to cards intentionally changed by the manufacturer, realizing that is not always easy to determine. The King is an unintentional scarce print defect. I refer to recurring print defects and even non recurring defects as variants, cards that differ in some way from their common counterpart. Value I leave to the hobby.

End of rant