What is the origin of Frank Thomas NNOF?

[isiahfan]

Originally Posted by bnorth

That is actually fairly close to what could have happened. I don't see it as being a blanket problem that caused the error. My best guess though is really really close to what this person told you. The stuff you have quoted in you listing is so silly it has to be driving any serious buyer away.

If you don't know what a blanket is I am sure I have an old one from a Hiedelberg out in the garage. I can take a pic and post it if you want.

As stated..I know nothing about the printing process. I am curious what you keep specifically referring to in my description and why you are so confident in how the error occurred. To be honest I don't really care about how it happened...just care that one of the big 2 card grading companies will give it a NNOF (preferably) or Partial Blackless. I highly doubt my description scares away anyone..it's the lack of grading IMHO that is killing it.

[bnorth]

Originally Posted by isiahfan

As stated..I know nothing about the printing process. I am curious what you keep specifically referring to in my description and why you are so confident in how the error occurred. To be honest I don't really care about how it happened...just care that one of the big 2 card grading companies will give it a NNOF (preferably) or Partial Blackless. I highly doubt my description scares away anyone..it's the lack of grading IMHO that is killing it.

It is beyond obvious one of your experts is wrong. You quoted the wrong one in your listing.

This is what a printing blanket looks like. The streaks are rain as it and me got wet when I brought it in from the garage. I took the pic in front of my bat rack that I have posted pics of several times on this forum. That means I am not trying to act cool and pretend I know what I am talking about.

There really is no way of knowing exactly what happened but it is easy to know what did not happen.

I actually think it is 100% real if that matters.

[isiahfan]

Originally Posted by bnorth

It is beyond obvious one of your experts is wrong. You quoted the wrong one in your listing.

This is what a printing blanket looks like. The streaks are rain as it and me got wet when I brought it in from the garage. I took the pic in front of my bat rack that I have posted pics of several times on this forum. That means I am not trying to act cool and pretend I know what I am talking about.

There really is no way of knowing exactly what happened but it is easy to know what did not happen.

I actually think it is 100% real if that matters.

I appreciate it....I am always happy to learn more about the process

[bnorth]

Originally Posted by isiahfan

I appreciate it....I am always happy to learn more about the process

Honestly the biggest thing for me is. If I was buying a $10K card that is a only known printing error and had no printing knowledge. I would find someone that did, When they read what you have quoted they would laugh and tell the buyer to pass. JMHO

The top part of you listing is great. I also believe it had to be the first or really close to the first NNOF card printed. I could be wrong but it is my best guess.

[isiahfan]

Originally Posted by bnorth

Honestly the biggest thing for me is. If I was buying a $10K that is a only known printing error and had no printing knowledge. I would find someone that did, When they read what you have quoted they would laugh and tell the buyer to pass. JMHO

The top part of you listing is great. I also believe it had to be the first or really close to the first NNOF card printed. I could be wrong but it is my best guess.

I got ya...and I will change it....but I think we will agree to disagree on the influence it would have on an average buyer. I don't think most would buy it without it being slabbed (Sadly...and in many cases understandably... this is where the hobby has gone), and the few that would probably crap money and don't care. I think very few people without specific knowledge themselves would procure and take into serious consideration that of an expert as the value is directly related to the certification. Next show I go to I will get it slabbed...even if just as a regular card...and see how that affects the sale?

[bnorth]

Originally Posted by isiahfan

I got ya...and I will change it....but I think we will agree to disagree on the influence it would have on an average buyer. I don't think most would buy it without it being slabbed (Sadly...and in many cases understandably... this is where the hobby has gone), and the few that would probably crap money and don't care. I think very few people without specific knowledge themselves would procure and take into serious consideration that of an expert as the value is directly related to the certification. Next show I go to I will get it slabbed...even if just as a regular card...and see how that affects the sale?

I do agree with you on it being in a slab, especially if you could get it into a PSA slab.

I will PM you with a little more info.

[steve B]

Originally Posted by bnorth

It is beyond obvious one of your experts is wrong. You quoted the wrong one in your listing.

This is what a printing blanket looks like. The streaks are rain as it and me got wet when I brought it in from the garage. I took the pic in front of my bat rack that I have posted pics of several times on this forum. That means I am not trying to act cool and pretend I know what I am talking about.

There really is no way of knowing exactly what happened but it is easy to know what did not happen.

I actually think it is 100% real if that matters.

That's what that is all right.
Ours were green.

Depending on the press, there would either be one, cleaned between colors. Or one for each color.
I don't know of a multi color press that put all four colors plus glosscoat on the same blanket. No that there are none, just that there aren't any I know of for offset lithography.
(BEP has/had a press or two that could do multi color intaglio from one plate, but that's an entirely different process, and not offset in any way. As far as I know they were never all that open about how it worked.)

Those blankets are fairly thick rubber, and Ours were fabric reinforced. They were hard to damage, especially to the extent of the missing black patch on the NNOF sheet. When they got old they would crack a bit like any other rubber then it was time to replace them. That wasn't all that often.

Since they're compressible, shallow damage will affect the print quality. But it doesn't look like that.

What does look like that is debris in the platemaking process, especially since the missing area looks like packing tape.

Dry offset printing could be a couple things, one process called that uses a rubber plate similar to typesetting. Which prints to the blanket. But it's usually used for printing onto plastic or metal.

Or it could be waterless printing, where instead of a plate that retains water so it can reject ink in the unprinted areas, the plate has silicone or other ink repelling materials. It's fairly new and I don't know the exact date, but the plates are made and used in a similar way to traditional plates.

[bnorth]

Originally Posted by steve B

That's what that is all right.
Ours were green.

They come in handy around the house. Besides making perfectly centered 60s Mantles(joking) they are way better than kneeling or laying on the ground when working on stuff. That is why I have one at home, no press in the garage.

[HalfNipponese]

Here's an article about my find and the recent pull documented on the CU forum. There's also discussion about a potential 14th card on the board.

https://www.sportscollectorsdaily.co...-junk-wax-era/

[saucywombat]

Having contemplated this issue in depth and given that a lot of information is buried under the sheer size and volume of the PSA Forum thread, I have copied a 2017 post I made there regarding the source of the error in the printing process.

ITS HONESTLY VERY COMPLICATED! And not in any way a sort of a Guttenberg press sort of affair, especially at the volume that Topps was producing what is essentially cardboard packaging. If you can take the time to read all of this and the related links, its very interesting in that you will see the issues that create every type of printing error that we as collectors find on baseball cards.

If you aren't interested in reading, essentially the Thomas and related errors come from either the chemical developing of the photographic negative of the cards for the black plate or the subsequent step of chemically etching those negatives onto the physical metal plate.

The physical metal plates accept ink from the blankets. Due to the issues with the plate itself, the plate did not accept black ink from the blankets (in the areas we find the errors). The plate itself literally is worn out by the production process and must eventually be replaced. Topps would have worn out many plates during any given years production. This wearing out process explains the slight variances between the cards.

IMO - Dave
************************************************** *********

Well first let me say that the four color printing process, a variation of gravure printing, that produces baseball cards, most commercial cardboard packaging and newspaper, is a process that an immense amount of variables play in to. A quick web search will reveal a great deal of scholarly (include complex physics) energy is devoted to perfecting the process. Think fluid dynamics, capillary actions, heat, pressure, static electricity, viscosity, paper quality, ideal chemical properties, speed of rollers, thickness or rollers, tension between rollers, etc.

It defies a short explanation so if anyone is so inclined, check out printwiki.org/Gravure
Pretty interesting

Another good site which shows common defects in the 4 color process (and basic catalog of every PD in the history of Topps) see http://www.offsetprintingtechnology....roubleshooting

Gravure printing involves at its heart the engraving of an image onto a printing plate. in the mid-19th century processes were developed to allow for the chemical etching of photographic images into metal. This allowed for the first time for photographic images to be accurately reproduced through press printing (as it was not possible to perfectly reproduce by hand on to the plate). Interestingly today it is possible to physically etch an image with digital technology which can eliminate the chemical process but not possible in 1990.

So at some point Topps photographed and developed the the "F" plate black image. This is when the most likely error occurred that produced the blackless area on the F sheet.

Undeveloped patches are a known problem in developing photographic prints, which would be loosely defined as an area of the negative that has been unaffected by processing solutions. This may have gone unnoticed and the image transferred to the plate.

Also a possibility is that a chemical process is used to etch the photographic negative into the plate. So a perfectly good image can be distorted if the chemical etching process does not go well. I think this is probably what we are looking at with the "F" plate. In this example of the process you can easily see how bubbling or streaking of the sort present on the "F" sheet are easily made during the application of the image to the roller plate.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uwPVKJmElbU

The image in the video is known as a "resist". Problems that occur in rotogravure printing can include the resist not being properly applied. The video above shows a simplified process (usually the resist stays adhered longer to the plate for the image to be properly transferred). The resist usually requires a more involved process for stripping it away from the plate. Sometimes the resist (or parts there of) remain adhered to the plate. This is a very plausible explanation for the errors. To me it seems clear from the type of blackless areas produced and the quantity in which they were produced point clearly to an issue created by the production of the photographic image that produced the resist or its application or removal from the black "F" plate.

[ALR-bishop]

Great post Dave, thanks for the info

[West]

Originally Posted by saucywombat

Having contemplated this issue in depth and given that a lot of information is buried under the sheer size and volume of the PSA Forum thread, I have copied a 2017 post I made there regarding the source of the error in the printing process.

I'm still confused by the digression into gravure printing. I agree that the cause of the error was an improperly exposed/damaged plate. As we have mentioned in the past, that is the only way the NNOF was reproduced 500-1000X and all copies are virtually identical. However, the Topps employee I spoke to told me they used offset lithography printing - ie a printing plate created from a mask of negatives (I'm following Steve's theory here that an obstruction - tape, etc- in the platemaking process prevented the black plate from being properly exposed). In gravure a cylinder is engraved with cells which carry ink - seems a lot different than offset lithography. Also, it says gravure prints hexagons, while offset lithography gives the dot design - an example of which can be found on the very distinct 1990 Topps colored borders.

[steve B]

Offset lithography and gravure are entirely different processes. Gravure is more like intaglio (engraving) than lithography.

The basics of it, that the black plate wasn't made correctly is correct.

In Offset lithography the blanket doesn't put the ink on the plate, but accepts it from the plate. The plate gets it from the inking rollers.
Ink fount/inking rollers/plate/blanket/substrate.

Here's the process for making an aluminum offset lithography plate.
With a few small changes this is what was done at the shop I worked for.
Like we had the negatives and masks taped together along with the registration marks. And our plates were a different color.
Not any big difference
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yr1-CCpvB74

Part 2
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXA8WkEORM8

Originally Posted by saucywombat

Having contemplated this issue in depth and given that a lot of information is buried under the sheer size and volume of the PSA Forum thread, I have copied a 2017 post I made there regarding the source of the error in the printing process.

ITS HONESTLY VERY COMPLICATED! And not in any way a sort of a Guttenberg press sort of affair, especially at the volume that Topps was producing what is essentially cardboard packaging. If you can take the time to read all of this and the related links, its very interesting in that you will see the issues that create every type of printing error that we as collectors find on baseball cards.

If you aren't interested in reading, essentially the Thomas and related errors come from either the chemical developing of the photographic negative of the cards for the black plate or the subsequent step of chemically etching those negatives onto the physical metal plate.

The physical metal plates accept ink from the blankets. Due to the issues with the plate itself, the plate did not accept black ink from the blankets (in the areas we find the errors). The plate itself literally is worn out by the production process and must eventually be replaced. Topps would have worn out many plates during any given years production. This wearing out process explains the slight variances between the cards.

IMO - Dave
************************************************** *********

Well first let me say that the four color printing process, a variation of gravure printing, that produces baseball cards, most commercial cardboard packaging and newspaper, is a process that an immense amount of variables play in to. A quick web search will reveal a great deal of scholarly (include complex physics) energy is devoted to perfecting the process. Think fluid dynamics, capillary actions, heat, pressure, static electricity, viscosity, paper quality, ideal chemical properties, speed of rollers, thickness or rollers, tension between rollers, etc.

It defies a short explanation so if anyone is so inclined, check out printwiki.org/Gravure
Pretty interesting

Another good site which shows common defects in the 4 color process (and basic catalog of every PD in the history of Topps) see http://www.offsetprintingtechnology....roubleshooting

Gravure printing involves at its heart the engraving of an image onto a printing plate. in the mid-19th century processes were developed to allow for the chemical etching of photographic images into metal. This allowed for the first time for photographic images to be accurately reproduced through press printing (as it was not possible to perfectly reproduce by hand on to the plate). Interestingly today it is possible to physically etch an image with digital technology which can eliminate the chemical process but not possible in 1990.

So at some point Topps photographed and developed the the "F" plate black image. This is when the most likely error occurred that produced the blackless area on the F sheet.

Undeveloped patches are a known problem in developing photographic prints, which would be loosely defined as an area of the negative that has been unaffected by processing solutions. This may have gone unnoticed and the image transferred to the plate.

Also a possibility is that a chemical process is used to etch the photographic negative into the plate. So a perfectly good image can be distorted if the chemical etching process does not go well. I think this is probably what we are looking at with the "F" plate. In this example of the process you can easily see how bubbling or streaking of the sort present on the "F" sheet are easily made during the application of the image to the roller plate.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uwPVKJmElbU

The image in the video is known as a "resist". Problems that occur in rotogravure printing can include the resist not being properly applied. The video above shows a simplified process (usually the resist stays adhered longer to the plate for the image to be properly transferred). The resist usually requires a more involved process for stripping it away from the plate. Sometimes the resist (or parts there of) remain adhered to the plate. This is a very plausible explanation for the errors. To me it seems clear from the type of blackless areas produced and the quantity in which they were produced point clearly to an issue created by the production of the photographic image that produced the resist or its application or removal from the black "F" plate.