Question about sheet orientation.

[WillBBC]

This doesn't fit in with the 50s-80s theme of the board but perhaps somebody here can help me with this.

Anybody know why some sheets are printed with random card orientation? There has to be a specific reason, no?


http://i.imgur.com/A1GkW.jpg

[doug.goodman]

On that sheet it looks like card placement is based on the location on the gold box on each card.

Doug

[toppcat]

Once they got through 1952, where the cards were almost all in sequential numbers or groups, Topps went to a more randomized pattern. I suspect they wanted to give as large a spread of numbers as possible in each pack (in theory at least, since they were the kings of poor collation in the 50's) to entice the kiddies into filling in their missing cards and the random pattern made this easier.

[Volod]

On that sheet it looks like card placement is based on the location on the gold box on each card.

Doug Yeah, I think you may be right. The gold box needed to located within the image so as to be as unobtrusive as possible, which could be any of the four corners. But, on the printing sheet, I guess the boxes had to be oriented in roughly the same position within the row for embossing (not being familiar with this card set, not sure about that) by a separate process? Just my guess.
I recall seeing an uncut sheet of 1953 Topps cards in which each row was reversed, i.e., upside down in relation to the last row, which met the need to orient the colors with the name boxes in each row.

[ALR-bishop]

Doug is hardly ever right :)

[con40]

The gold boxes would have been applied in a separate process than the ink printing and the UV coating, so it's not likely that they had a whole lot to do with the orientation of the cards on the sheet.

One reason may have been for collation. The cards are cut down and sorted via machine and this orientation may have facilitated more efficient automated packing of the cards.

Another reason could be for optimum print quality. The goal on any print sheet is to balance the spread of ink over the sheet as much as can be controlled. If you print too much of the same ink color in one area, you can get unexpected print anomalies like ghosting (when sudden shifts from full flod of ink to complete absence of it in a short space makes a ghost impression on the sheet when transferring from the blanket). The spot gold ink would have been very susceptible to ghosting because of the start stop nature of printing solid borders.

[doug.goodman]

Doug is hardly ever right :)

Come on Al, I am occasionally. Insert smiley face here.


The gold boxes would have been applied in a separate process than the ink printing and the UV coating, so it's not likely that they had a whole lot to do with the orientation of the cards on the sheet.

Oops, I guess not this time. Insert another smiley face here.



Although, even though I know nothing about the print process and it sounds like Con40 does, I still think it's too much of a coincidence that the only thing about the placement that seems to be in any sort of order, is the location of the gold boxes. Let's insert yet another smiley face here.

I like smiley faces today.

Doug

[steve B]

The gold boxes would have been applied in a separate process than the ink printing and the UV coating, so it's not likely that they had a whole lot to do with the orientation of the cards on the sheet.

One reason may have been for collation. The cards are cut down and sorted via machine and this orientation may have facilitated more efficient automated packing of the cards.

Another reason could be for optimum print quality. The goal on any print sheet is to balance the spread of ink over the sheet as much as can be controlled. If you print too much of the same ink color in one area, you can get unexpected print anomalies like ghosting (when sudden shifts from full flod of ink to complete absence of it in a short space makes a ghost impression on the sheet when transferring from the blanket). The spot gold ink would have been very susceptible to ghosting because of the start stop nature of printing solid borders.

Great explanation of the print quality issue. I'd been trying to figure out how to explain that.

I'm not as sure about the foiling. I've seen a hot stamp foiler in operation, but only a small one. The foil is on a backing and is pressed on with a heated die from behind the backing. It looks like there's enough room for them to fit another set of foiling between the bit that's there. So the roll of foil would only have to move a few inches at a time.

Maybe they got the best of both operations, efficient foiling, and good print quality. So unlike the Topps of the 70's.

Steve B