Quote:
Originally Posted by deweyinthehall
I guess my definition (and the one I try to use in building my own collection) is that the original/error needs to have been "meant" to be printed that way - whether intentionally (e.g. the '74 Washingtons, which is very rare) or absentmindedly (e.g. the '79 Wills, '91 Topps Comstock, '89 UD Murphy, or most inaccurate data on the reverse), vs. something that happened as part of the printing process itself - the NNOF Thomas, the '89 Upper Deck Sheridan (partially obscured "OF"), etc.).
The more I think about this, the more I suspect the 90 Martinez is in the latter category.
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In my opinion, a printing defect would imply something transient that was created by accident, like fish eyes, solvent/water drips and any of the million other stains and printing doodads that don't get caught in quality assurance. A "true variation" should be associated with a dedicated set of printing plates.
While the 1990 Topps NNOF was created by accident due to a flaw in the creation of its black printing plate, the print run associated with it did have its dedicated set of printing plates and many other cards within that run have unique variations that are only found in that brief print run. It is likely close to 1000 identical copies exist before it was corrected. Since it had its own set of plates I believe it should have its own category as a variation within the set. The term "printing defect" does not accurately define the true causation of the error, in my opinion.
The paradox of error/variation collecting is the rarer the error is, the more valuable, but at a certain point some cards become too rare to achieve hobby recognition. It is what was very astutely termed the "event horizon" of population count.
https://not.fangraphs.com/the-error-...oples-history/
"The card, a 1990 Fleer Dave Martinez, turned out to be so rare that it was never listed in any of the major price guides, even well after the turn of the millennium. Though the internet has finally confirmed their collective existence, it’s still unclear how many copies of the card exist, and they’re sold so rarely that there’s no way to know how much they’re worth. This is the event horizon of the error card: at some point a card becomes so rare that it becomes invisible, and therefore worthless.
And so the card, with its very yellow 90, will sit in my garage, waiting for the day when the remaining collectors convene and decide that it’s worth buying. And when that day comes, I’ll have finally won that trade I made twenty years ago."
Am I quoting back a participator in this thread? This was a great article and I quite enjoyed reading it. I would note that another paradox of error and variation collecting is that if you bring more recognition to a certain error card, you increase the odds that some will surface, but you also increase the chances that someone else will outbid you for it.