Variation Hounds - the one that got away...
 

I know there are quite a few collectors interested in variations so though I'd share this story. I'm sure there are many others who have thought they had something special only to have it slip away...

I'm currently building a '62 Topps set and was recently searching ebay for certain cards. As I looked I found the Frank Lary card on the left. While examining the listing I noticed the "A" in Frank was completely yellow. No big deal for a lot of collectors, but pretty cool for us Variation Hounds! I searched all other listings and any pictures of the card I could find as well as all the known variation lists I'm aware of. Not one other like it mentioned! I bought the card and was pretty excited to unveil it here on Net 54. Well, when I received the card, the A was no longer filled in yellow (small one on right, sorry pic is so small). They are the same card. The air was let out of my variation balloon! :confused:

Anyone else have any near miss stories like this. In the end you just got to laugh this stuff off. I should mention the seller has been great and is taking a return on the card.

When looking this card up, I noticed that it was peculiar that Lary didn't have a regular 1962 Topps card but was on an all star card and a Wins Leader card from the same year, and even had his own 1962 Topps stamp and 1962 Topps Baseball Buck.

Larry
 

Bill-- the L in Larry on both seems defective, and it looks like some red ink went astray as well. I would have kept it :)

On more than one occasion I have thought I saw something in a scan that turned out not to be there

I, too, have made a purchase only to find the scan was poor. Usually, in reagrds to a color tint (yellow, green). What I've found helps with that now is to look at the seller's other cards listed and see if the tint is consistent through all of their scans.

Reverse story
 

I had something like that happen in reverse sort of -

A guy had told me he had a 1962 Bazooka box 20 piece variation with Clemente - It is a box I have seen only seen once. When I met him he told me he had made a mistake and the box he had was Aaron, not Clemente. I was DEEPLY disappointed. He asked if I was interested in the Aaron box. I wouldn't have been except it was one of the nicest condition 1962 bazooka boxes I had seen. I was on the fence for a while about buying it. Finally I decided the condition was too good to pass up. I sent it in to PSA to get graded. It graded an 8. BUT WAIT A SECOND! PSA had mislabeled it according to the posted grades as a 1960 box - when I received it, in fact IT WAS a 1960 box! I was so disappointed that it wasn't Clemente, I neglected to notice the fact that in addition to being Aaron it in fact was the MUCH scarcer 1960 Bazooka issue and NOT the 1962!

You're right Al, they are "smeared" - funny how variation hounds find different variations desirable or not. I was all worked up over the "filled in A" such that I overpaid a bit for the card, hence the return. I can get you the ebay sellers information if you're interested.

Now that's a good story Howard, nothing like a pleasant surprise!