What is scrap and what isn't?

[MuddyMules]

Originally Posted by mrvster

btw....my favorites are make readies

Now that's a perfect example of a make-ready sheet and it's one of the best examples that I've seen. I love the extra run on the magenta going through the press with a different set of plates. Thanks for sharing.

[MuddyMules]

Originally Posted by mrvster

but all the stock should have been consistent for the most part right??? since there was probably some deviation.....I'm still sure there had to have been some that were taken home/ thrown aside

I'm sure someone took something home. We all do......

The thickness of the stock would be the same during a first run. The thickness of the stock could change on a second or third printing of the card(s). A perfectly centered card at a perfect size would have came from the top of the stack. The inconsistency would have come from the sheets shifting during the cut. The thicker the stack of sheets, the more shifting of the sheets. If you had a guy in a hurry to cut the sheets or show off that he could cut more sheets than the next guy, this would cause inconsistency.

If ALL of the same player cards were printed at the same time, regardless the paper will be the same thickness. The only variable would be a reorder/reprint of the cards, using the same negatives to make new plates and a possible paper product change. A lot of times a customer would reorder "certain" player cards and the printing company would not reprint the same layout because the plates were already destroyed or they did not need the "other" players. They would use the same negatives to create new plates, which would cause a difference in color variation, cutting variations and paper thickness, in which these cards could have been printed on a different press, depending on the new layout of the cards on the sheet. A customer may have only ordered 1,000 of one player but 10,000 of a more popular player and then decided that they needed 1,000 more of only one of the players.

[Brian Van Horn]

When I bought this card the seller had listed it as scrap because of the waviness in the right border. I do not consider it scrap, but I will leave it up to your opinion:

[steve B]

Originally Posted by mrvster

starring at it many times when Steve had posted it, leads me to believe it's a tweener scrap, but I need that measurement

Peak to peak is 2 21/32, side to side is just barely under 1 1/2. So just barely over the nominal size both ways. But so close I wouldn't consider it oversized. The back is lined up fairly well with the front.

So yes, it very well could be a hack job by a kid somewhere along the line.

Steve B

[mrvster]

you got that from a great seller....but not sure that's scrap sorry

Ted...loving your expertise.....just sent you an email....want to share my circus with you...think you deserve it

[atx840]

Classic Johnny "Tweener"....handcut and missing some ink...could be scrap but not much of a premium.

Thanks again Eric.

[mrvster]

love the "tweener" jack....

Steve

DAMN

mystery solved......I had "scrap" eyes

email me steve so I can show you the circus

[Brian Van Horn]

[QUOTE=mrvster;1240799]you got that from a great seller....but not sure that's scrap sorry

Thank you,

Brian

[Pat R]

Johnny, that Myers is a beauty!!!

[steve B]

Teds done way more than I have. I just got a good overview in a place that cross trained and actually made us do work in different departments. Plus a few years of repair work on machinery including presses, and studying industrial history a bit.

Different shops do things slightly differently, usually depending on exactly what market they were in. We did a lot of higher quality work for colleges and the government. A couple guys had worked for other shops and those other places were each very different. One was huge and busy with large volume lower quality, the other was a tiny shop that did lots of flyers and business cards. Both had shortcuts to either make things faster or cheaper.

We didn't do the chromalin proofs like Ted did. Most customers sent in their own art, so the few "proofs" were one color sort of photographic things. (That's how few there were, I only saw maybe five in two+ years and they never told me what they were called.) Usually handmade into books to verify the page layouts worked properly.

One of the challenges for me has been translating from modern printing which as Ted says is nearly all CMYK for images. The place I worked ran custom colors for stuff like borders or stripes, but straight CMYK for color pictures. Those borders could be CMYK as well, but for small runs I think it was cheaper to mix than do color separation which was fairly expensive in 79-81.
Topps didn't even do it for borders back then and their press runs were huge.

They also never sent the makeready sheets to cutting.

We also had very few makeready sheets. The first job I ran the press for was in register after 7-8 sheets. The last one I did was in register after 3. All the makeready sheets I did except one would have probably been acceptable at Topps at the time. The stripping and platemaking departments made even a trainee like me look good. I took some stuff home, but none of the ones I did. Just a couple things I thought were cool. Book covers with a fighter plane, and a danger sign for a laser lab. "danger! class 4 laser range do not enter without proper eye protection" I had it hung up in my room for years

The four color process was fairly new in 1909-10. So T cards are an odd mix. Some colors are halftone, some aren't. And there are 6-8 colors on most cards. The colors aren't necessarily done photographically, and I'm convinced the stones were laid out from transfers printed from master stones. Many of the commercial stones I see have multiple items on them that wouldn't be printed alongside each other. Including the one stone with a 1910 ish hockey card.

For what it's worth, T206s are very consistent as far as the paper stock goes. I measured about 50 of them and they were all within about .003 of each other.


Hey Ted - I've got to ask. Did the press guys ever pull the trick of telling you that you could tell the ink was mixed properly by holding your hand over it and feeling how warm it had become? (The obvious punchline is that they would slap your hand into the ink getting it all over , and that stuff is hard to clean off.) In our place it was almost an initiation. They never pulled it on a new guy or someone they didn't like.(There are far worse things for them) Once pranked you were "in"

It's great having Ted comment. I'm learning stuff. Especially the proper terms for stuff I know is done and why, but didn't know the technical name. Like trapping.

Steve B

[mrvster]

Thanks

this is a great thread....Steve, as always, thanks for your insight sir

[MuddyMules]

Originally Posted by steve B

Hey Ted - I've got to ask. Did the press guys ever pull the trick of telling you that you could tell the ink was mixed properly by holding your hand over it and feeling how warm it had become? (The obvious punchline is that they would slap your hand into the ink getting it all over , and that stuff is hard to clean off.) In our place it was almost an initiation. They never pulled it on a new guy or someone they didn't like.(There are far worse things for them) Once pranked you were "in"

It's great having Ted comment. I'm learning stuff. Especially the proper terms for stuff I know is done and why, but didn't know the technical name. Like trapping.

Steve B

Thanks Steve and back atcha. Your input is fantastic.

I never had the honor of dipping my hands in ink, since I worked in the prepress department. I still had to go out on the press to look at issues with the plates and to help with verifying the color to the proof.

Now.....when I first started out as a rookie, I did have to chase down a "bucket of half-tone dots" because the pressman told me they needed more half-tones for the press. They also had me look for a "plate stretcher" because they couldn't get the colors in register on the make-ready sheets and that they needed to stretch the plate to get it in register. All in fun........I miss that family.

You mentioned that the make-ready sheets would not go to the cutters....what our guys would do is put the make-ready sheets on top of the paper load, after final printing, to keep dust, dirt, drinks, food, people's asses from sitting on the loads, etc... off of the good sheets to help eliminate any additional waste. Sometimes they would write across the sheets to let everyone know what was under the make-ready sheet as well. The make-ready sheets would go through the plant on top of the paper load all the way to the finish before it ended up in the scrap bin. Sometimes they would simply get mixed in to the good sheets after they came off of the press or when the straight cutter would jog the paper into the cutter. You pick up the first few sheets and sit them in the cutter, with the make-ready sheet still on top, turn your back to talk to some yapping co-worker complaining about his life, turn back around and pick up another few sheets, put them on top of the other sheets and there you have it, a make-ready sheet mixed in to all of the good sheets, cut, boxed and out the door with no one ever knowing.

Also, I just want to go back to a printers mindset. If a printer were to take something home, I guarantee that they would take the "perfect" printing over a mistake every time. They would be proud to show their family what they produced. Printers are very picky and passionate about the product they produce. Most of our guys or gals took a lot of pride in their work. They were journeymen and they wanted the work to be perfect. It was a competition between them to show who could produce a nicer product at a faster rate with minimal waste. Hand cuts would not have come from the printers that I knew and worked with. Off center or miscuts were common and were not avoidable all of the time, especially on the deeper sheets in the cutter, but they hated them. Once cut, it's too late, they're not printing them again. A good pressman would not like producing out of register cards, hickeys, missing colors, flopped backs, etc....they did love a misspelled name or word, because that came from my department and they would love to rub it in that we were idiots.

Every department had scrap factored in to the production of the final product. I cannot remember the percentage allowed for scrap, but it was minimal. You were paid good money to produce a product and it better by right and up and running quick. The faster it shipped, the faster the invoice went out.

Oh and by the way, the customer wanted everything perfect from the printer. No mistakes. Would you pay an invoice for a box of crap? Yes, "crap" is what it was before it was collected, not scrap.

[ls7plus]

Originally Posted by Bocabirdman

I just talked to a printer. He describes things as:

Scrap....Make-Readies for a run. (Leon's Masterpiece would indeed be Scrap)
Misprints....Lapses in Quality Control
Proof.... Test Print or Prints to achieve a perfect example. Failed Proofs would be Scrap in the days before computers.

Very, very interesting--perhaps the ambiguity is why (I have been advised) PSA stopped grading proofs some time ago. +1 on the above.

May your collecting bring great joy to you, and tolerance from your spouse!

Larry

[Blunder19]

Scrap-alicious

[steve B]

Originally Posted by MuddyMules

Thanks Steve and back atcha. Your input is fantastic.

I never had the honor of dipping my hands in ink, since I worked in the prepress department. I still had to go out on the press to look at issues with the plates and to help with verifying the color to the proof.

Now.....when I first started out as a rookie, I did have to chase down a "bucket of half-tone dots" because the pressman told me they needed more half-tones for the press. They also had me look for a "plate stretcher" because they couldn't get the colors in register on the make-ready sheets and that they needed to stretch the plate to get it in register. All in fun........I miss that family.

You mentioned that the make-ready sheets would not go to the cutters....what our guys would do is put the make-ready sheets on top of the paper load, after final printing, to keep dust, dirt, drinks, food, people's asses from sitting on the loads, etc... off of the good sheets to help eliminate any additional waste. Sometimes they would write across the sheets to let everyone know what was under the make-ready sheet as well. The make-ready sheets would go through the plant on top of the paper load all the way to the finish before it ended up in the scrap bin. Sometimes they would simply get mixed in to the good sheets after they came off of the press or when the straight cutter would jog the paper into the cutter. You pick up the first few sheets and sit them in the cutter, with the make-ready sheet still on top, turn your back to talk to some yapping co-worker complaining about his life, turn back around and pick up another few sheets, put them on top of the other sheets and there you have it, a make-ready sheet mixed in to all of the good sheets, cut, boxed and out the door with no one ever knowing.

Also, I just want to go back to a printers mindset. If a printer were to take something home, I guarantee that they would take the "perfect" printing over a mistake every time. They would be proud to show their family what they produced. Printers are very picky and passionate about the product they produce. Most of our guys or gals took a lot of pride in their work. They were journeymen and they wanted the work to be perfect. It was a competition between them to show who could produce a nicer product at a faster rate with minimal waste. Hand cuts would not have come from the printers that I knew and worked with. Off center or miscuts were common and were not avoidable all of the time, especially on the deeper sheets in the cutter, but they hated them. Once cut, it's too late, they're not printing them again. A good pressman would not like producing out of register cards, hickeys, missing colors, flopped backs, etc....they did love a misspelled name or word, because that came from my department and they would love to rub it in that we were idiots.

Every department had scrap factored in to the production of the final product. I cannot remember the percentage allowed for scrap, but it was minimal. You were paid good money to produce a product and it better by right and up and running quick. The faster it shipped, the faster the invoice went out.

Oh and by the way, the customer wanted everything perfect from the printer. No mistakes. Would you pay an invoice for a box of crap? Yes, "crap" is what it was before it was collected, not scrap.

Sounds like the same sort of shop just a bit bigger. Ours had around 20 people. I did a total of four days in prepress. One each in camera and platemaking during a couple huge rush jobs. And two days in the stripping dept (Opening for off color jokes in case any of you missed it) That was because of a camera operator who hit his "lunch" a bit too hard and got an entire afternoons worth of negatives all spotted from airborne dust. It was apparently cheaper to give me a light table spot and a bottle of the red whiteout like stuff than it was to reshoot the whole thing. Followed by my second day in the camera room which I don't count since it was all cleaning - Not bad, a cool job for a couple days and only one crummy one to balance it out. They were good that way.

One time we did a Two color program for some awards ceremony. And I had to go through all 1500 of them to find 50 perfect ones for the winners who were all pictured. That gave me a better appreciation for just how common tiny hickeys and ink spots really were.
(For the rest of you- Hickeys are a term for fisheyes. I'm pretty sure neither is the proper technical term, but I'm now sure Hickeys was common in at least two shops. )

Those pranks sound good. The other ones in our place were tossing the general help in the waste paper bins - Big canvas ones, maybe 4 ft tall and 2 1/2 x 4 ft. And one of the press guys tried surprising me with an ink cup containing some solvent and a firecracker. It went off when he tried to light the fuse in the stairwell. Damn funny. No injuries, but he looked like the coyote in the roadrunner show and wouldn't immediately explain to me just what the __ had just happened in the stairwell.

Not too many people actually miss their early jobs, but I sure do. print shop was actually my third job, after a photolab and assisting a photographer. Both also pretty cool jobs.

And just to keep stuff close to on topic.

In stamps errors that got released are usually valuable and widely collected. But stuff that got saved/stolen from the trash is referred to as printers scrap and is only worth a minimal ammount as a curiosity. Just the opposite of what we do.

Steve B

[Pete Pyro]

The scrap craze should come with a caveat if it's for investment. They are interesting examples of one-of-a-kind cards, but it seems too much like the "tulip" bubble reference

[mrvster]

as collectors become more advanced in the set, they realize the scrap's uniqueness and rarity.....they are just finally getting the recognition they deserve.....

[ullmandds]

Originally Posted by mrvster

as collectors become more advanced in the set, they realize the scrap's uniqueness and rarity.....they are just finally getting the recognition they deserve.....

Nice appeal to scrap collectors sense of self worth and perception of intelligence!

[ullmandds]

[QUOTE=mrvster;1240281](I am almost surprised Mr. Ullman is not all over them, they are almost , essentially "bizarro" T206 , the exact opposite of T206)...



Johny...I DO find these scraps interesting...they are very cool...and I love to see them...just not at the crazy prices being paid for them!

[Leon]

Originally Posted by ullmandds

Nice appeal to scrap collectors sense of self worth and perception of intelligence!

He has a point though. When you are a die hard T206 collector and finish up what is doable for you, then what? From experience I can confidently say some collectors that are life long collectors, and have completed the whole set, have started collecting them.

[ullmandds]

Originally Posted by Leon

He has a point though. When you are a die hard T206 collector and finish up what is doable for you, then what? From experience I can confidently say some collectors that are life long collectors, and have completed the whole set, have started collecting them.

Leon...that's a really nice sentiment on valentines day...like a good relationship...the love keeps growing as you expose more about your mate!

Or in my case...once I saw the Lunacy within(T206 that is)...I broke up with her!!!!!

[frankbmd]

An Ode to Johnny V
An adaptation by Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald, Eminem & Rihanna

I'm friends with the monster that's under my bed
Doo-wop, Doo-wop, Doo-wop, Doo-wop
Get along with the voices inside of my head
Doo-wop, Doo-wop, Doo-wop, Doo-wop
You're trying to save me, stop holding your breath
And you think I'm crazy, yeah, you think I'm crazy
Doo-wop, Doo-wop, Doo-wop, Doo-wop

Yet, it don’t mean a thing, if it ain’t got that swing
Doo-wop, Doo-wop, Doo-wop, Doo-wop
If it’s not a piece of crap, you ain’t got that scrap
Doo-wop, Doo-wop, Doo-wop, Doo-wop
It makes no difference if it’s sweet or not
Just give that dealer everything you got
Doo-wop, Doo-wop, Doo-wop, Doo-wop

[ullmandds]

How about an audio clip of you singing, frank??

[mrvster]

Just got off a terrible 16 hour day to read this thread.....and it just put a HUGE smile on my face!

LOVE the SONG FRANK the man!!.....and Leon, Frank and Pete , you are the collectors , the veterans, who really define this hobby to many.....true living legends....Wonka, Tim, Jim, Johnny , Clayton, Adam, Vin, Mike, Chris B, Mike S., Hank, Erick, Jamie, Chaz, Barry , Scott, OMG, there are so so many more I haven't mentioned, you guys know who you are....just are golden in this hobby....make it a hobby for me.....I wouldn't enjoy the hobby as much if I couldn't read this board , or have met half the decent people in this world....

Gotta say, T206 and collectors here make my life , a sad as that might sound, it's very true

YOU GUYS ROCK...


btw.....I have come to realize over the years that without decent collectors, the cards are not as fun.....and in essence, are worthless.....people are what drive these


Happy V day everyone.....enjoy the freak show...

btw...if anyone would like to see my circus, just email me

[teetwoohsix]

Hey Johnny, I just wanted to say that I always enjoy your enthusiasm and input, I feel you also make the board a great place. We've had many conversations and your collection (in my opinion) is one of the best I have had the pleasure to view!

I LOVE scrap cards, miscuts, ghosts, WST's, and even color shifts. If I could afford to collect these cards I would. I do go after the small stuff, like WST's and color shifts, the other stuff is just a bit out of range. But for the collector who loves one of a kind cards, this is where it's at. That's why I don't think it's a bubble, more of a dimension that more collectors will eventually gravitate to (if you stick with T206's).If I ever won the lottery, you guys better watch out

To each their own, I ALWAYS love to look at these cards-even freaks from other sets-because they are unique.

Sincerely, Clayton

[mrvster]

Thanks my friend! you are one of the rock solid guys here(and anywhere)...RIGHT back at ya! you have GREAT taste in 206 and cards in general.....your input on this board is sought after ......your focus on what you can afford is just incredible....great eye.....great guy.....a collector who makes this board what it was...

btw...thanks for holding that sov 460, that was another thing that collectors don't even know...you were willing to part with some cards you loved just to better my collection....true self less deeds you do Clayton B