Why do T206's seem to have print variations and other T cards do not?
 

Just a general question.

We can find 206's for sale with all sort's of print variations / errors, however the other T series cards seem to be non existent with printing errors.

Is there any insight as to why, or is the answer as simple as QC improved.

" Dag nabit! We can't keep producing and sending out printing errors in our card packs with tobacco! Everyone will stop buying our cards! Who's overseeing quality control? "

They do exist in other T sets, and T206 would have more than most because it is one of the most printed sets (probably number 1, rivaled by only T59). We would expect to see it on top.

However, the gigantic astronomical difference strongly suggests the problem. It is the valuable baseball cards that have so many errors and printing defects because that is where the money is. If someone alters a T59 to be missing a color, they just made themselves $5 if they are lucky. If they do it to a T206, they just made what, a K+? Playing around myself it’s not that hard to alter T cards to appear like a printing defect. I am greatly suspicious of even my boxing printing defects that aren’t worth much; they are probably faded, sun exposed, glue damaged or altered to achieve the effect.

Many of these printing problem cards did not leave the factory that way. I think the folly is in believing they are all or mostly genuine.

I think you're just seeing the quantity of T206 vs other sets. When there are 25x as many cards produced, the number of errors are going to show up more frequently. There are print errors in T205 (bad registration/missing gold/green borders), T201/T202 have all sorts of odd miscuts, E92 family have miscuts/missing color/upside down backs/overprints, T222 have upside down backs/overprints, etc. I'm sure others can list off more examples. Also folks consider every little missing piece of a letter on a T206 to be a significant misprint while with other sets no one cares.

One of my faves; is the T209,
"Whoops, we didn't put the factory info at the bottom".
That's OK boss; it's only federal law.

https://www.net54baseball.com/pictur...ictureid=33467

Ben

"I love baseball history backstory; especially when it involves cards."

Here are a few non-T206 print errors:

They were meant to be stiffeners and novelties. Depression glass is a perfect example. When they were changing colors they just dumped new colors and if it had a little of the last color so what. Eventually the true color in the later batches would be fine. I imagine printing millions of novelties there would be many flaws no one cared about at the time.
I worked at a wallpaper factory for a time and sometimes it took a bit to line up all the lasers so the colors were perfect. If they were slightly off in the beginning of a run then it still passed QC. Far off were sold as seconds.

I would say the T206 quantity is the answer to why you see more. Obviously this isn't a T card, but it's the same time period. This E91 card not only has the back upside down, it has two backs showing and it's not even the right back for this card. They made three errors here (sorry about the blurry scan, it's almost as old as the card itself)