How hard would this be? 1987 Topps wrong back set
 

I pick up odd ball prints whenever I find them inexpensively and along life's road, I have picked up close to 300 wrong backs/blank backs and blank front of the 1987 Topps set, mostly for a nickel or so each. I am missing most of the stars and key rookies. How expensive/difficult would it be to build the full set? I see them all the time on Ebay, but spending $3 or more per card is more than I would be interested in. Any thoughts/ideas?

I honestly would think it would be fairly easy. The issue would be just looking for big lots of these as the shipping would far exceed the cost during the assembly. These should not be more than a dollar and a half unless it's one of maybe 5-7 stars like Canseco or Big Mac who might push a fiver.

I have seen lots of 50-100+ fairly regularly.

For example, I would consider this a tad high but look for these types of auctions - https://www.ebay.com/itm/38480621184...Y&LH_Auction=1

I have done stuff like this before and as a hint and to avoid frustration as all your backs are worthless, penny sleeve them all and sticker or marker the card number on each so you can keep track of progress and organize.

Most collect them by the player on the front. You can fairly easily put a set together that way. The thing is if you want to get serious there are multiple backs for each front. It depends on the error the printers assistant made when loading the sheets who is on the back.

Picking up full sheets of them used to be easy but I haven't looked in years. I know I have one and another member used to have some also. EDIT: Looked and must have sold the 87 Topps wrongback sheet, still have a 87 Topps blank front sheet.

As most of them are printers errors by simply sliding the front sheet in first and backwards per layout the error will be most often consistent. The same backs will be in position for an upside down sheet prints this way every time.

If you are a real minutia collector, you can look for the harder error which is not the print reverse of the same sheet, but however the reverse of a completely different sheet run. These are much rarer.

In any way, I would track the collection using front numbers...makes more sense to strangers and displays in a one sided sheet binder much, much better.

Cool idea. Regarding blank backs, it would probably be best to look for blank back sheets and go from there. I am sure they are out there

Ben, I just noticed that I didn’t refresh my page for hours and we basically said the same thing, lol.

I guess when we have the same error collector tendencies we are are bound to repeat some stuff. Sorry I said basically the same as you. :D

A least we agree.:)

Too bad we couldn't get Raymond from Milwaukee on here to see how his 87 Topps master wrongback set is going.

How many cards are in a Topps 1987 wrong back master set ?

If they printed each possible variation I believe it is 5 of each card without adding in any of the variations/errors. 3 will have an offset upside down back and 2 will have wrongbacks but be centered the correct direction.

Wow that would take a lot of dedication to complete a master set.

I know a guy that has been working on Topps wrongback master sets for decades.

The good thing with the 87 Topps set is they made truck loads of wrongback errors. In 1987-89 Topps might have printed more wrongbacks than the other companies printed cards.:)

The easy ones are when they loaded the correct sheets backwards. Like sheet A fronts with B backs that also make B fronts with A backs from the same double sheet.

Using a A sheet front as an example these are what can be on the backs. If you know the sheet position of the cards you can figure out what player combos are possible.

A front upside down off center B back
A front upside down off center D back
A front upside down off center F back
A front centered correct direction C back
A front centered correct direction E back

I noticed that there were relatively large quantities of wrong backs in 87. I have may couple of projects that I may never find (T206 Davidson Drum back, Marshall University phone card of Michael Payton/Eric Kresser, 1997 Jags team issue Chris Parker) medium difficulty (Diamond Stars, 1950 Big League Stars, Hires) so I don't want to start another very difficult project.

BTW, thank you for the great suggestions.