Interesting defenitions Joe.
I'm not quite there, but maybe just shifted a spot.
Errors - To me are mistakes of any kind that didn't get changed. I'm only interested in them as things that might have been changed.
Variations- Cards where there are two versions, an error and a corrected one, or a noticeable difference between printers or printings. The 62 Greens are, the two 52 Mantles are, but also the different holograms on early Upper Deck cards, and the three different die cuts on 88 Score . I've gotten into the habit of mostly only refering to major stuff or stuff that's already recognized as variations.
Varieties - A term I borrowed from stamps. (I collect constant plate varieties of the US official stamps from the 1870's) It's basically any difference that is a) A difference on the plate And B) consistent over at least a portion of the press run. These can be really minor, but they are "different" cards. It might just take a magnifying glass to see the difference easily. And most of them would be classed as just errant dots by most people. I have a pair of 71 High numbers that the only difference is that since they're miscut you can see that one was on the edge of the sheet and the other was in the middle. It's only visible when the cards are miscut, but they're technically different cards.
Printing errors - Some are hard to tell apart from minor varieties, some aren't. But I put all production mistakes here. From simple miscuts to stuff like a card where the die cut is at the bottom rather than the top, or the serial number got stamped twice, one on an angle.
A lot of the "variations" on Ebay are just errors, the most common being fisheyes and bad registration. Unless it's really severe or unusual some other way They're not really interesting.
Nearly whatever people want to call them is ok with me. It's the two extremes that bug me. Either the "It's not a variation unless it's like a totally different picture" People, or the "L@@k! It's got a tiny dot that I've only found on one card and It's a rare variation" (even though it's obviously a fisheye and a tiny one at that) There's some interesting stuff in the middle ground. The Junkwax gems guy does pretty well at sorting the little differences from the mere sloppy printing. He's listed a few clunkers, but I think there's a few on every variation list.
I'm in the process of typing up my 81 topps list.........Lots more than you'd think, but most of it really minor.
Steve B
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