1993-94 topps black gold winners

[4reals]

Here are a few interesting tidbits regarding these I discovered as I researched them for my Dodgers team sets. Most is common knowledge but I uncovered a few things others may not be aware of and have a couple questions perhaps others can help me with.

1993 was the first year for the black gold winners. Winner cards were randomly inserted into packs, you could receive an A-winner, a B-winner, a C-winner, or a D-winner card. You could also receive an A/B winner card, a C/D winner card, or an ABCD winner card. These cards possessed redemption rules on the back and had an expiration date for redemption.

When you redeemed your card you would get packs in return along with a copy of the card you redeemed. This redeemed version of what you sent in the mail now had a checklist of names on the back (instead on redemption rules) and could be differentiated on the front with a printed "certified" just above the winner logo. So, there are at least two variations of each winner card.




I say there are "at least" two variations of each card because it has been discovered that the foil used on the front of these cards appear in both a reflective and non-reflective foil. Since Karros is the only Dodger in the '93 set it is the only example I have to show. In the picture below the card on the left is a "certified" loose single that I obtained that came from an A-winner pack. It has non-reflective foil. The card on the right is actually an unopened pack of "A-winner" cards. You can see through the pack that like the first card it is "certified" but has reflective foil. That is, the diagonal topps stamp within the foil is somewhat camouflaged. My question is does this foil variation occur in the unredeemed/non-certified variations as well?




Another variation not documented in any publication (as far as I can tell) is that the back of the "certified" A/B-winner card has an error on the checklist of names. A 0. appears where it should say 10. and a 1. appears where it should say 11. My question is, does a correct variation exist for this card? I have not seen one.




Lastly, another undocumented error appears for the A-winner card. For the unredeemed/non-certified variation the A-winner players appear with a C-winner logo as seen in the pic below. I have a couple extras of these if someone wants to trade. Questions I have for this error is does it appear with both types of foil (reflective and non-reflective) and does it appear as an error on "certified" (or redeemed) cards as well?




Any input would be helpful. Any time we deal with what I call "compound errors" or "compound variations", that is, errors on top of errors or variations on top of variations, it can get confusing.

For the record, 1994 black gold winners have the certified and non-certified variation, but no other variations that I can tell. I am looking for a '94 Black Gold ABCD-winner card in both the certified and uncertified variations if anyone has them. Thanks!

[steve B]

Originally Posted by 4reals

I say there are "at least" two variations of each card because it has been discovered that the foil used on the front of these cards appear in both a reflective and non-reflective foil. Since Karros is the only Dodger in the '93 set it is the only example I have to show. In the picture below the card on the left is a "certified" loose single that I obtained that came from an A-winner pack. It has non-reflective foil. The card on the right is actually an unopened pack of "A-winner" cards. You can see through the pack that like the first card it is "certified" but has reflective foil. That is, the diagonal topps stamp within the foil is somewhat camouflaged. My question is does this foil variation occur in the unredeemed/non-certified variations as well?

It also looks like the card in the winner pack has no white border between the black background and upper foil section, and does have a thin black outline around the top of the upper foil.

Not that I'd want to make it even more complex.....

Steve B

[4reals]

Great eye Steve, you're right, I never caught that before.

[4reals]

Originally Posted by steve B

It also looks like the card in the winner pack has no white border between the black background and upper foil section, and does have a thin black outline around the top of the upper foil.

Steve B

Steve, after looking more closely at my pack to examine the points you made I came to the conclusion that the white bar is actually there, it is just partially covered over by unaligned registration on the application of the foil during the print process. The whole foil section should have been applied higher up which would have made the white bar separating the black from the foil larger and would have also covered up the black on the top which ends up looking like a border line.

[ALR-bishop]

I have a set of both. Was blissfully unaware of all this other "stuff". For both of my sets my A/B/C/D/AB/CD and ABCD cards are certified with CLs on back. My 94 ABCD card is below, as is my 93 A card.

[steve B]

Originally Posted by 4reals

Steve, after looking more closely at my pack to examine the points you made I came to the conclusion that the white bar is actually there, it is just partially covered over by unaligned registration on the application of the foil during the print process. The whole foil section should have been applied higher up which would have made the white bar separating the black from the foil larger and would have also covered up the black on the top which ends up looking like a border line.

I thought that might be what it was, but changed my mind when I looked at the lower border. If the foil was low enough to erase the upper one the lower one should be much larger. (Or if the left one was foiled high the lower border should be missing.)

It's hard to measure on screen, but using my calipers on the flatscreen it does look like the spacing between the upper and lower halves is larger on the left card.

I wonder if the foil was done in two passes, one for upper one for lower?

Of course that would not only wipe out the spacing as a variety, but would open up the possibility of reflective foil on one half and less reflective on the other........

I have a couple of these, I'll have to get them out to check.
And I have a feeling I'll be buying a few more at some point.

Steve B

[4reals]

Here's another variation that popped up on the B-winner card (unredeemed). The copyright line is missing.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/1993-Topps-B...item27d29f1beb

[Julz24]

I saw this thread and decided to add my own experience. I dug around for my 1993 Topps Black Gold Set - Certified Winner cards.

Back then - I sent away for and received the following: 44 player cards, Winner ABCD, Winner A, Winner B, Winner C, Winner D. For some reason I never received an A/B or C/D Winner card?? Or were A/B and C/D cards only issued in 94?

More interestingly, the copyright information for player cards 1-22 appear on the bottom of the card. But cards 23-44 have no copyright info?? I posted a picture of cards 22 and 23...

So were the missing copyrights ever corrected?? And/Or were any of cards 1-22 printed without copyright??