"Registered" means the colors line up properly. I'm not a printing expert, but as I understand it, each of the primary colors is printed separately on the card. Sometimes, one of the colors is offset a bit from the others, making the picture look blurry or double-visioned.
Back to your original question, I would definitely pick the 56 set. In my opinion, it is one of the most beautiful card designs ever produced. Plus it has Jackie Robinson, Bob Feller and Phil Rizzuto. You lose out on a few rookies, but you can pick up other cards of all of those guys for fairly cheap. To me, there's something nice about having cards of guys like Jackie and Feller that date the set to an earlier era. On the down side, the set does have fewer cards than the 57 set and does not have the two nice group cards that you'll find in the 57 set.
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