Question About 52 Topps Printing.

[Brianruns10]

Originally Posted by Volod

That is, if such a sheet contained a Campos with any of the errors, it would seem extremely strange indeed that no other cards on the sheet were printed with the same error.

I think it makes perfect sense it would only happen on the Campos. After all, that's the nature of an error: a one time thing, a mistake that made it past initial quality control. If there was more than one instance, than it would suggest intent, which would be very odd.

As is, I think it's a matter of when they were creating the printing plate, the star device from the red layer somehow made it onto the black as well. I'm not sure how...I'll leave that to someone who knows more about the whole printing process.

[toppcat]

Originally Posted by Brianruns10

I think it makes perfect sense it would only happen on the Campos. After all, that's the nature of an error: a one time thing, a mistake that made it past initial quality control. If there was more than one instance, than it would suggest intent, which would be very odd.

As is, I think it's a matter of when they were creating the printing plate, the star device from the red layer somehow made it onto the black as well. I'm not sure how...I'll leave that to someone who knows more about the whole printing process.

Masking error?

[steve B]

Originally Posted by toppcat

Masking error?

Most likely.

There would be original art, probably a pasteup for the whole sheet.
That would have been photographed by a very large camera that made a sheet size negative.
Then opaque paper would be used to make a mask to block out the parts not desired in a particular color.
Those would be used to expose the plates.

So if the mask was torn a bit or made wrong, the star would have been exposed and the plate would print a black star.

Repairing that error would be as simple as applying a bit of opaque tape over the star, or taping down the torn bit. It could even be corrected directly on the plate with a special limestone crayon.

Correcting the Zernial woud require at the least a small portion of new original art, a new negative -Either complete or a small piece spliced in, a new mask if it wasn't spliced, and a new plate. Lots of work.

Steve B

[ALR-bishop]

Thanks for the input Steve

[Republicaninmass]

Just found this Campos, where the top left of the star is black, I might be able to get a tighter scan, but it is definately there

[con40]

Steve is dead-on regarding the production of the press plates and how an unintended element could print on the wrong plate. Removing unwanted elements on spot printing (like all pre-1992 Topps backs) is as easy as "stoning it off the plate". Often, the pressman will miss bits of the element that is why there could be a few (dozens at most) of a Campos card that shows a bit of the star...

1. Art director sees the extra black star on the card and asks for its removal.
2. Pressman stops the press, stones the star off the black plate, then restarts the press.
3. After running a few sheets, the pressman pulls a sheet to show the AD. The sheet still shows trace bits of the black star.
4. Pressman stops the press again and repeats step 2.
5. Start the press again to pull a clean sheet for approval.

Topps being a frugal company in those days, would likely have kept the error sheets in the print run to make the full sheet count knowing that the error would be corrected in the vast majority of the sheets.

If it happened like in the scenario above, the scarcity might be...

1. Red star only most common
2. Black over red scarce
3. Partial black over red very scarce

Depending on how many times the pressman had to stone the plate, there could multiple versions of Campos with varying degrees of the star visible.

[ALR-bishop]

Thanks to Keith and Steve both

[Volod]

Yes, fascinating info, indeed. But, does this now mean that a master set is not complete without a Campos with - what - a black line at upper left point of the star, black line at upper right of the star...at what point (pun) does it become silly?