1971 Topps Blue Border Steve Garvey?
 

Attachment 244958Did anyone happen to catch this on ebay today? Thoughts on why, how, where? Could it be a unique prototype or a cheap fake?

On my phone but looks to be missing the black ink to me.

There is a 1971 Topps #390 Glenn Beckert on eBay that has the same characteristics. The Garvey is #341, so they were probably on the same sheet. I'm guessing these were printed without the final black ink coating. Looking closely at the Beckert, it looks like it was hand cut from a sheet. It has a normally printed back.

I agree, just like with the "blackless" 82s, the facsimile signature is not present on this card

I missed that fact.
The Beckert seems to be missing more than just black, or the Garvey just had a better base color scheme and comes across more colorful w/o black?

You're right, I didn't notice that. The Beckert definitely has more issues :). The Garvey is just missing the black, the Beckert is missing practically every color.

The Beckert looks like a "Cyan Color Progression Proof." The Garvey just looks like it missed one color pass, but the distinctive one for this issue. Any possibility it's just sun faded or altered?

'71 Topps
 

I believe it's a progression proof.

I would say the Steve Garvey is 100% legit. Sun fading would never remove the black and leave the other colors perfect. Also can't imagine any technique that could remove the black ink and leave the cyan under it.

Not sure I like the way that flip looks, appears to me the entire right side is cracked.

The only problem I have with either one being a proof is that both of them have finished backs. Here is the back of the Beckert.

Yeah, that's odd; I expected a blank back on the Beckert.

The word "proof" is thrown around like the word "error" and means something different to everyone. I know they both have specific meanings but are rarely used correctly.:)

'71 Topps
 

How bout this, it's an authentic card, with a finished back and an unfinished front. Personally, I just use "proof" when it's an unfinished card; I'm probably using it wrong, but that's just how I see it. :D I'm unsure if we can really know for sure if Topps used an item as a proof even if they say they did.

Proofs
 

As I recall Bob Lemke reported that the 3 famous 1960 cards of Hadley, Cimoli and Theoneberry on team different from those in the issued set that he saw had regular backs. Would that make them variations rather than proofs ?

Generally agree that the only way to be sure you have a blank back proof is if front differers from regular card like is the case with the well known 77 and 84 catalog proofs

But Topps Vault has issued a bunch of blank back serial or progressive proofs

I usually go with the technical term "really cool" or "awesome" myself.:) No matter what anyone wants to call them they are the stuff I really like to collect.

I like that one too!

The shop I worked for did very little proofing, like maybe one photographic mockup for the customer to sign off on. Everything else was production stuff from making press adjustments etc.

Topps......Appears to have done just about every sort of proofing possible.

Depending on how you look at it, even a card that's a production piece can be a "proof" of sorts. What we usually call proofs are done to get the design set, then the particulars of each card before production.
So stuff like this isn't technically a proof. But it was from a sheet printed during the adjustment of the registration. Probably on a two color press since there are multiple impressions of both black and Magenta.

Steve B
http://www.net54baseball.com/picture...pictureid=6133

Another one, this one from the corner of the last of several make ready sheets. Those are sheets used for press adjustment before the actual production starts. The last one usually gets a corner torn off to mark where the setup pieces end and the product begins.

The blue is printed right into the torn area, showing it was torn before being printed. (I also saw the whole sheet and was there when it was cut. I couldn't afford the sheet, but did buy this card. )

http://www.net54baseball.com/picture...pictureid=3243

Steve B

I love to collect this stuff and would have been a player up to 125 on that. ( it really got a strong price imo )

I would think that was an print error of a missing black pass that was more than likely taken out the back door by a worker at the factory. (A common occurence for these items) The creasing and inconsistent sides look like it was likely hand cut from a dumpster sheet.

Wait...I change my mind; I'm with you ^ :)

Steve,

I know you have knowledge in the printing industry so what would the Steve Garvey, Glenn Beckert and Brooks Robinson cards pictured be called in the printing industry that have a finished back and just part of the colors that go into a finished card on the front?

Curt,

By the way, did you purchase the '71 Garvey?

Is that yours? That is cool either way.

I did buy it. It was quite hard to pull the trigger at that price, but I really liked the look of it and figure that there can't be too many like that out there, whether it be a printing proof, printing error or other. If it turns out to be fake, well that would just plain suck, but it won't put me in the poor house!

Here is a 1971 Garvey "no yellow" and a close up of the ink pattern. I had it graded by Mike Baker at GAI years ago to protect it...GAI 7 No Yellow.

That Magenta looks awful pink and the black has that grey tint. Looks like it could be faded. I have not tried a 71 card but yellow is very easy to remove on several years of Topps cards.

'71 Topps
 

Curt,

Yes; the '71 Brooks is mine and looks very similar to your example. I did pulled the card out since it l was similar to the example you pictured. The card I pictured does have a finished back. Also, I do have one other proof of the Brooks Robinson '71 Topps card w/less color present and it also has a finished back. I guarantee the Garvey you pictured is the real deal.

Glad you could add this card to your Garvey collection; it is a good one. It's likely that's the only one of its kind. These type of items are some of my favorites to pick up for my PC.

Congrats on the pickup!

Awesome Brooksie Mark! Could you post the other one too?

This is slightly off-topic, as the cards are from about five years later than the Garvey and depict a hockey player.

However, here is a group of "progressive color proofs" from 1976 Topps Hockey. The 10 proofs are blank-backed. The 11th card (showing a fully printed back) is a regular issue from the base set.

In theory, other color combinations should be possible for this particular card. For example, I do not have one upon which only yellow and black were printed.

Still, this should provide a little insight as to how some of the various color combos look.

Eric,

Very cool set! Thanks so much for sharing.

'71 Topps
 

Clint,

Sure; here you go.

As a fan of error cards from this set, these are pretty damned amazing! Too rich for my collection but fascinating.

FWIW I got started with these when I pulled a green-only back from a pack in 1971.

Those are incredible! Thanks for sharing!

Mark, those Brooksies are fantastic!

'71 Topps Brooks
 

Thanks! The '71 Topps Brooks with the blue border is one of my favorite cards and I don't believe I have ever shared a picture of it so it's nice to have it appreciated by others. You can pick up a 1971 Brooks Robinson #300 pretty much anytime you want (high grade are steep though), but the obscure items don't come around often if ever.

Anytime...:)

There's not really much for technical terms that can easily be applied without seeing the entire sheet.

They're all unfinished product, the Beckert less finished than the others.

The most likely thing is that they're from make ready sheets, excess sheets used for press adjustment. And for some reason they didn't get used for the black layer - Or for Beckert only the blue layer.
Those sheets might have been sheets spoiled somehow during the printing of the backs. So part of the whole sheet might have had poor inking of either back color, or some other problem.

Other possibilities - They're missing colors because of some mishap in the printing. Maybe two sheets fed at the same time, maybe a prior sheet came apart and a peeled off section blocked the color (Almost impossible for the Beckert) Maybe a piece of foreign matter another piece of paper, or something got into the press and blocked the black. Maybe the sheet misfed and got jammed.
All would lead to some or all of the sheet missing at least one color.

That stuff would usually get used as makeready sheets for whatever was next on that same stock. (The 79s with 78 backs were found either in sheets or strips at a landfill if I recall the story right, as sheets they were probably make ready sheets. )


Of course, at the print shop I was at only the sheets on the press were make ready sheets the others were called by a rather general technical term "trash" :D

If we'd printed any cards, I'd have some cool stuff, as I'd have made off with as much of that as I could carry. We had to pay to have it hauled away, so I'm sure the boss would have been ok with it. My card box dividers for a few years were cut from the discarded margins of some cardstock cover -maybe a college catalog?

Steve B

Steve,

Thanks so much for the response. You add great insight when it comes to the printing process, which I know very little about.

Just one more question to help with my understanding. The "progression proofs" that Eric72 posted of the '76 Wayne Stephenson would be different than the Brooks Robinson's that were posted, is that correct? Those are typically how I see proofs, w/the normal colors used, black, yellow, blue, yellow and blue, etc. and are typically blank backed.

Completely OT, but who knew Dick Van Dyke played for the Flyers???

If the Brooks Robinsons have backs, they probably aren't progressive proofs.

Progressive proofs are used to check that each color layer prints properly, and that the colors are lined up correctly so the registration will be good over the entire sheet. (In Topps case....ummm....sort of...their registration wasn't always great. )
The stuff that should get caught at this stage is things like a player with the team banner the wrong color or wrong name. Or worse stuff like having one card out of place on one color so for instance Ed Jones always gets the blue layer from Dave Jones card.

That sort of thing has been missed fairly recently, one year Black Diamond had a whole bunch of wrong backs because the sheet layout for the front didn't match the layout for the back.
The few 91 Topps that have the pink background from a manager on a players card and the opposite are either mistakes that slipped past proofing, or partial wrong backs where the correct fronts got the wrong pink back layer but the correct Blue info/stats layer.

As you can see from the test sheet piece I showed Topps had a LOT of potential adjustment. The brief time I ran a press the farthest I had to move an entire plate was maybe 1-2mm. Getting the tension uneven on the plate would throw the registration off by a bit so it had to be adjusted evenly. They eliminated a lot of adjusting and proofing by making the plates so they would naturally line up almost exactly. But we were a high quality fairly short run sort of place. Topps printers were mostly trying to get a few million cards out the door as quickly and cheaply as possible.

Steve B

I believe Topps used the same CMYK process for the Robinsons and the Stephensons: 4-color printing:

Cyan (fancy name for a shade of blue)
Magenta (fancy name for a shade of red)
Yellow
Black

Additionally, I believe they used a process known as, "half-tone printing."

Long story short, the cards given pre-press treatment should basically exhibit the same characteristics.

Just my two cents. Steve, please weigh in here, as you are the resident expert.

Topps does use CMYK, although there are some years where it really looks like there are some other colors as well. Usually in the solid areas like team banners etc.

In theory, yes the progressive proofs should be the identical layers to the issued cards. For the 70's and before that's more likely. From the mid 80's on, I believe they used multiple printing plants, possibly producing different products. So maybe Rack packs from one, wax from another.

Any problems found at that stage in proofing that got corrected may show up as two different progressive proofs.

Even if the plants are the same, there can be small differences between runs, or between cards on different parts of a sheet. That's more likely in the era before 132 card series. And also possible for 132 card series before 1974-5 when they combined all the series.

I know for sure that 88 Score were screened differently for different press runs. In other words, every card from the set comes with at least two different versions most of which can only be told apart with a magnifier. (And three different sorts of cutting, I haven't checked for differences within each sort of cutting, but the most common comes two ways for sure.)

Steve B

Halftones are simply the picture being done with dots. The original art is photographed through a "screen" that breaks the image up into the dots. A black and white newspaper photo is the simplest halftone to find. Nearly all modern cards are printed that way. (maybe all, but there's always that one that was done differently) Even back to 1909-10 there's a lot of halftones used.

Generally to make sure the colors mix properly, each color is done at a different angle. (For Straight CMYK, T206 uses some solid colors some halftones and lots of colors. Printing of that era can often be mixed styles)

One of the tells of many fakes is that while Topps prints some stuff like borders and team/name banners in solid colors most fakers take the halftone from an original card and print those areas as halftones.

Steve B

Score had a plant in the little town I live in back in 88. Not sure how long it was open but know it was not for very long. Their main plant was 50 miles away and they just tried the plant here for a short time. Had many friends and relatives that worked here/there.

Unlike the other companies of the time Score took quality very serious. There are tons of error, wrong back, and blank front/back cards from the other guys. Just try and find Score errors, they are very rare. Almost every wrong back or blank back/front cards that originally hit the market came from Walt or myself.

Al,

Are those what Adam was talking about previously; green backs? I've never seen those before. I though he was talking about a finished back w/a blank front. Thanks for sharing those; very neat...

Yup, those are them. Blank front (sorta):

http://photos.imageevent.com/exhibit...nk%20front.jpg