1980-present variations

[con40]

Ben, I truly admire your zeal to discover as many modern "variations" as possible, but none of these cards are true variations in any sense whatsoever. These cards are the results of print quality issues. Presses in the day ran tens of thousands of sheets an hour. At that speed, any dirt, debris, ink density, registration problem, blanket damage, etc., would yield issues on hundreds, if not thousands of sheets before the pressmen could catch it and clean/fix the press issue. The affected sheets would not be thrown away and would continue on into packs. This would occur constantly throughout the press run.

Printing is far from a precise process and all kinds of issues occur on a press run consisting of millions of sheets.

You will keep discovering these anomalies for the rest of your life.

However, your 1988 Wade Boggs All Star is a true variation! It's actually two different cards. I suspect it was placed on the sheet twice, or was printed in two runs of separate printing plates.

How can I tell?

Look at the space between the bottom of the yellow frame and his name in cyan ink. The space is different on each card. Since yellow and cyan are solid CMYK inks, this is not a registration issue (the photo is crisp and it has yellow and cyan ink in it). The only way this could happen is a change in the yellow and cyan plates... or it was two separately stripped cards on the sheet.

[bn2cardz]

Here is a color variation I found a few years back. I have a few 82 Dale Murphy's and they all look like the one on the left.

These were scanned together at the same time, so no color issues from the scanning:



Here is a link to the thread where I first brought it up.
http://www.net54baseball.com/showthread.php?t=171207


I have been looking through my childhood cards recently looking for variants and miscuts. The most interesting one I recently found was a finger print in the ink. I will have to get those scanned in some time.

[bnorth]

Originally Posted by bn2cardz

Here is a color variation I found a few years back. I have a few 82 Dale Murphy's and they all look like the one on the left.

These were scanned together at the same time, so no color issues from the scanning:



Here is a link to the thread where I first brought it up.
http://www.net54baseball.com/showthread.php?t=171207


I have been looking through my childhood cards recently looking for variants and miscuts. The most interesting one I recently found was a finger print in the ink. I will have to get those scanned in some time.

Would like to see the fingerprint card. I have 5 different ones in my collection.

[bn2cardz]

Originally Posted by bnorth

Would like to see the fingerprint card. I have 5 different ones in my collection.

Took me a while but here is the fingerprint scan as well as two others.

The motivation for my scanning finally, though, came from the 1987 Topps Luis Aquino Blue Name. I came across this card today, I don't know how long I have owned this card, but it jumped out to me when I noticed the name wasn't black or white like the other 87 Topps cards. If anyone has any information about other 1987 Topps Name variations it would be appreciated.



The finger print, 1992 Tyler Houston, isn't as impressive as other finger prints and it would be hard to prove it was factory done, but I pulled the card and it isn't my finger print.



The 1992 Rick Honeycutt has a pink blotch in his upper thigh.


Of the three, though, I think the 1987 Topps is the only true error/variation. There are surface blemishes on the card, yet the edges and corners and edges are NRMT so I am sure the card came this way in the pack as the other cards next to it in the box all looked NRMT.

[bnorth]

Originally Posted by bn2cardz

Took me a while but here is the fingerprint scan as well as two others.

The motivation for my scanning finally, though, came from the 1987 Topps Luis Aquino Blue Name. I came across this card today, I don't know how long I have owned this card, but it jumped out to me when I noticed the name wasn't black or white like the other 87 Topps cards. If anyone has any information about other 1987 Topps Name variations it would be appreciated.



The finger print, 1992 Tyler Houston, isn't as impressive as other finger prints and it would be hard to prove it was factory done, but I pulled the card and it isn't my finger print.



The 1992 Rick Honeycutt has a pink blotch in his upper thigh.


Of the three, though, I think the 1987 Topps is the only true error/variation. There are surface blemishes on the card, yet the edges and corners and edges are NRMT so I am sure the card came this way in the pack as the other cards next to it in the box all looked NRMT.

The Aquino card looks like that because of light black ink in that area. The card looks like it got wet in the area where the name is also. Could be the black ink was running low also as the black is very spotty over the entire card.

The Tyler Green card looks to have a little extra black ink to the left of his foot in the border also, cool card.

[bn2cardz]

Originally Posted by bnorth

The Aquino card looks like that because of light black ink in that area. The card looks like it got wet in the area where the name is also. Could be the black ink was running low also as the black is very spotty over the entire card.

The Tyler Green card looks to have a little extra black ink to the left of his foot in the border also, cool card.

I have just learned my lesson about posting outside of net54. After getting sarcastic answers my thread was blocked when I asked about the Aquino card on Blowoutcards.

I think the Aquino is a light black that was printed on the light blue that caused the dark blue hue. Same time I is this a known variant, or just a one off printing flaw?

The Tyler Green also has some ink on the right border as well. Though I didn't get that in the close up.

[bnorth]

In my opinion the Aquino is a printing flaw. Like with all printing flaws there could be 1 or several 100 copies.

Blowout is fun to read because of all the little kid drama but little help unless it is a new highly overpriced card.

EDIT: LOL went and checked out the BO thread and it was exactly as expected.

[ALR-bishop]

Keith and I have had this discussion before. There is no accepted hobby definition of a variation that I know of, and some of the most expensive "variations" in the hobby are no more than the minor print defects of which he speaks.

I view a variant as any card that differs in any respect from it's common counterpart. I agree with Keith that if you look long enough you might find some print deviation in every card out there

I tend to view true variations as cards intentionally changed by the manufacturer for some reason. The 59 trade/option variations are an example. But I think I agree with Keith that DPs or cards printed on two different sheets that have cropping or other differences can be true variations , for although not specifically intended, the difference in the printing process was intended. The 52 Mantle or 62 greenies are examples.

But in terms of future value it does not matter what Keith or I think if the hobby as a whole decides that the 58 Herrer or 57 Bakep....or more recently the 61 Fairly...print defects are true variations.

I think the thread here and in the pre 80 forum are great at pointing out all the cool "variants" out there :-)

PS-- hello from St Bart's

[bnorth]

Originally Posted by con40

Ben, I truly admire your zeal to discover as many modern "variations" as possible, but none of these cards are true variations in any sense whatsoever. These cards are the results of print quality issues. Presses in the day ran tens of thousands of sheets an hour. At that speed, any dirt, debris, ink density, registration problem, blanket damage, etc., would yield issues on hundreds, if not thousands of sheets before the pressmen could catch it and clean/fix the press issue. The affected sheets would not be thrown away and would continue on into packs. This would occur constantly throughout the press run.

Printing is far from a precise process and all kinds of issues occur on a press run consisting of millions of sheets.

You will keep discovering these anomalies for the rest of your life.

However, your 1988 Wade Boggs All Star is a true variation! It's actually two different cards. I suspect it was placed on the sheet twice, or was printed in two runs of separate printing plates.

How can I tell?

Look at the space between the bottom of the yellow frame and his name in cyan ink. The space is different on each card. Since yellow and cyan are solid CMYK inks, this is not a registration issue (the photo is crisp and it has yellow and cyan ink in it). The only way this could happen is a change in the yellow and cyan plates... or it was two separately stripped cards on the sheet.

I 100% understand they are just print errors and not separate printings(real variations). They keep the hobby cheap and interesting for me.

I can't speak about all the 88 Topps All Star Boggs cards but the 2 I pictured are not from separate plates. The card on the right has a slight yellow print offset. In hand it is very easy to see.

[con40]

Originally Posted by bnorth

I 100% understand they are just print errors and not separate printings(real variations). They keep the hobby cheap and interesting for me.

I can't speak about all the 88 Topps All Star Boggs cards but the 2 I pictured are not from separate plates. The card on the right has a slight yellow print offset. In hand it is very easy to see.

Way to go Ben. There's no rules to enjoying this hobby!

I took a close look at those 88 Boggs cards and you are correct. The yellow rides high on the left card creating a larger space at the bottom between his name than on the right. Also looks like the yellow is running in the lettering on All Star.

[bnorth]

Here is a color variation on the 1982 Topps #53 Greg Gross card. Card on the right is the normal card.

[bnorth]

All cards pictured are 1992 Topps blank back proofs.

[bnorth]

Here is another fairly common print error. 1984 All-Star Set Collectors Edition Wade Boggs #8. The bottom 1/3 of his name is missing on some cards.

[steve B]

Originally Posted by bnorth

I can't speak about all the 88 Topps All Star Boggs cards but the 2 I pictured are not from separate plates. The card on the right has a slight yellow print offset. In hand it is very easy to see.

That's what I thought at first. There is a registration issue, but using my incredibly scientific (Ok sort of half assed) method*, I compared the distance between the yellow and blue, and the difference is substantial. Enough that I think it's an actual difference.

*I compare the gap using the cursor on screen. In this case, the gap on the left card is just the size of the arrowhead part of the cursor. The same gap on the right is much larger.

[steve B]

Originally Posted by steve B

That's what I thought at first. There is a registration issue, but using my incredibly scientific (Ok sort of half assed) method*, I compared the distance between the yellow and blue, and the difference is substantial. Enough that I think it's an actual difference.

*I compare the gap using the cursor on screen. In this case, the gap on the left card is just the size of the arrowhead part of the cursor. The same gap on the right is much larger.

Flip that, the LEFT gap is larger. And still bigger than it should be.

Also, I'm way late, and probably already commented.....

Daughter #2 is demanding the computer, maybe she should get it....

[bigfanNY]

This is I think a real error card from the 2012 Topps set. When the set was issued someone found one of these and tried to get a hundred bucks for it. No one bought it and then a few more turned up and I bought 3 or 4 for $3-$5. They came from all over the US Ca, Al, CT so it was not like it was a regional thing. I kept them all because I know hor rare it is to have a real modern error card.

[ALR-bishop]

I think this one has been posted in here somewhere before, maybe in the long pre 80 thread. Neat card

[Deadman31]

Ive asked about this on various areas of internet for a long time. It appears to be a silver variation.