1961 Mickey Mantle error card.. looking for advice

[RSteamboat]

A few months ago I was going through a box of 61 that I hadn’t opened in a long time. I noticed something odd on the back of one of the cards (Ted Kluszewski #65) Mickey Mantle is printed underneath the stats of Ted!!! WTH! Shocked to see my favorite player hidden amongst the common folk. It is printed upside down compared to front of card. There are no smudging on the print. It is clean and crisp. I don’t think it could be a wet transfer because of how clean it is and the fact that is upside down….

PSA and Beckett have both looked at the card and are unwilling to grade it. PSA stated to me that they were not willing to start a new category and they’ve never seen anything like this before.

At this point, my conclusion is that an employee improperly placed a sheet into a press and printed the front of the cards on the back of a sheet. It continues
through the production line because it is now in my hands so in my opinion, there’s gotta be at least one sheet that’s double printed. I have No evidence to support my claim it is just my opinion but seems like the only logical answer.

comments?

Thank you for your feedback
Stem

[JollyElm]

Yeah, a wet sheet transfer would have the image reversed due to the way the ink is 'transferred.' Yours has the correct orientation.

Some may believe it's a scrap piece, because they would print over already printed sheets and what not when testing out the printing, so as not to waste more paper. A definite possibility. but who knows?

Cool stuff!!

[Lucas00]

Not trying to be a conspiracy theorist, what you have seems to be something very cool. But what are the chances it's Mantle on the back?!

Maybe some sort of fan made thing by a topps employee.

[Elberson]

I think scrap too but very cool regardless

[swarmee]

1979 TCMA Baseball History Series the 1950's - [Base] - Printing Errors #10 - Ted Williams (Billy Johnson, Jack Sanford)
Courtesy of COMC.com

Yeah, multiple printings on the same stock, while not common, did happen. Printing mistakes can be somewhat valuable, and usually the grading companies will ignore them unless they're a straight up Wrong Back for most companies. While it does show Mantle, the printing is not as distinguishable at a distance, so I'm not sure it would be orders of magnitude greater valuable. I'm thinking it might merit a price of $1-2K.

[ALR-bishop]

Neat item

[bnorth]

Love cards like that but would have to see it in hand under some magnification to give an opinion. Something about it just looks off.

[Eric72]

Here's my uneducated, lay person opinion:

If this were a factory error, there would likely be other examples from the same sheet. It seems unlikely the other 131 examples (based on a 12x11, 132 card sheet) disappeared, leaving only this Mantle.

Additionally, it seems as though the "border" of Mantle 's card was printed on the Ted back. Since Mantle's border was white, this couldn't happen at the factory. The white borders of '61 Topps cards weren't printed. The white borders are created by the absence of ink in that area. The white is the portion of the card stock upon which nothing was printed.

This looks (to me) like a fantasy piece.

[swarmee]

Yeah, that border is weird. Plus, the clear number ball for Klu should be straight up black if it was directly printed from the Mantle at the factory. Would still be worth looking at in person, especially if it was just found in a box and not being sold as a printing freak.

[JollyElm]

Whoops, deleted. Redundant.

[RSteamboat]

I know that in this hobby a lot of us if not all of us have been burned at some point by a fake or deception of some kind.
This past weekend I took the card to the Charlotte card show and met with 10 different vintage dealers and an auction house. All agreed that the card is authentic but had never seen anything like this before.

Thousands of these cards never survived through the years so I don’t count out the possibility that there might be other cards from the same sheet just sitting in a box or unfortunately, damaged and thrown away.
Ted’s stats are clearly printed on top of the mantle image. The only way that could be done would be at the factory. How could you underlay an image on something that’s already been printed?
I’m not concerned about the value of the card or hoping it’s some crazy unicorn. I think it’s just really cool card and very unique.

When you walk up to a card show table and the 90-year-old man with half million in cards in front of him and he looks at your card and perks up and smiles and says wow!! The kid came out of that ole timer.

[Cliff Bowman]

What's on the other side of the card? Can you post a scan or pic of it?

[swarmee]

For those print sheet enthusiasts, are the Mantle front and Kluszewski back on the proper places on a print sheet where they could be aligned over each other?

[swarmee]

1961 Topps - [Base] - Blank Back #_VIWE - Vic Wertz [Poor to Fair]
Courtesy of COMC.com

Another plausible explanation: Blank backed Kluszewski with the Mantle front printed, then the Klu back printed over it.

Could also be grainy because of a transfer from the blanket, or would that also be in reverse?

[bnorth]

Originally Posted by RSteamboat

I know that in this hobby a lot of us if not all of us have been burned at some point by a fake or deception of some kind.
This past weekend I took the card to the Charlotte card show and met with 10 different vintage dealers and an auction house. All agreed that the card is authentic but had never seen anything like this before.

Thousands of these cards never survived through the years so I don’t count out the possibility that there might be other cards from the same sheet just sitting in a box or unfortunately, damaged and thrown away.
Ted’s stats are clearly printed on top of the mantle image. The only way that could be done would be at the factory. How could you underlay an image on something that’s already been printed?
I’m not concerned about the value of the card or hoping it’s some crazy unicorn. I think it’s just really cool card and very unique.

When you walk up to a card show table and the 90-year-old man with half million in cards in front of him and he looks at your card and perks up and smiles and says wow!! The kid came out of that ole timer.

Care to name any of those dealers and the auction house?

Like your username.

[Cliff Bowman]

Originally Posted by swarmee

For those print sheet enthusiasts, are the Mantle front and Kluszewski back on the proper places on a print sheet where they could be aligned over each other?

#65 Kluszewski is a 1st Series card and #300 Mantle is a 4th Series card, if it was the other way around and the 4th Series Mantle was printed over the 1st Series Kluszewski then it might be somewhat plausible but I can't believe a 1st Series card would be printed over a 4th Series card.

[RSteamboat]

Let’s keep it classy San Diego!

[nolemmings]

Originally Posted by Cliff Bowman

#65 Kluszewski is a 1st Series card and #300 Mantle is a 4th Series card, if it was the other way around and the 4th Series Mantle was printed over the 1st Series Kluszewski then it might be somewhat plausible but I can't believe a 1st Series card would be printed over a 4th Series card.

That's the first thing I thought also. Unless Topps printed the first 4 series at the same time and simply released them at different dates (which almost certainly didn't happen), it seems very unlikely that they would print a first series card on stock from a later printed series .

[bnorth]

Originally Posted by nolemmings

That's the first thing I thought also. Unless Topps printed the first 4 series at the same time and simply released them at different dates (which almost certainly didn't happen), it seems very unlikely that they would print a first series card on stock from a later printed series .

There is nothing about it that makes sense for being a real printing error. Just the different print angle of Mantle compared to the back of other card don't make sense. Yes that doesn't look like much on one card but now imagine the sheet that is a little over 12 times as tall and close to 23 times as wide. The full sheet corners would be WAY off. I could go on and on and on about everything I believe are huge red flags. Maybe in hand I would have a different opinion but I highly doubt it and I have owned about every type of print error imaginable.

[RSteamboat]

I appreciate everyone’s comments. It’s been very helpful. Every person that has held the card says it’s real. Unfortunately, there’s always gonna be haters.

[bnorth]

Originally Posted by RSteamboat

I appreciate everyone’s comments. It’s been very helpful. Every person that has held the card says it’s real. Unfortunately, there’s always gonna be haters.

LOL, haters. Seriously nobody on here cares enough about that card to be a hater.

Take some macro(close up) pictures of different parts of the card and post them so we can see the print dots.

[G1911]

Originally Posted by RSteamboat

I appreciate everyone’s comments. It’s been very helpful. Every person that has held the card says it’s real. Unfortunately, there’s always gonna be haters.

This thread is completely pointless if you are going to ignore evidence that doesn’t support what you want. Sell it to one of these people who believe.

[JollyElm]

afterhourstoppsartdept1961.jpg

[Eric72]

Originally Posted by RSteamboat

I appreciate everyone’s comments. It’s been very helpful. Every person that has held the card says it’s real. Unfortunately, there’s always gonna be haters.

Some people doubt the authenticity of the card. Collectively, we've laid out a few reasons and provided supporting information.

You've presented images of this card to one of the most knowledgeable groups of baseball card collectors in the hobby. Sorry if some of our opinions weren't what you wanted to read.

[Cliff Bowman]

Originally Posted by swarmee

For those print sheet enthusiasts, are the Mantle front and Kluszewski back on the proper places on a print sheet where they could be aligned over each other?

Kluszewski is in the third slot on a row on the 1st Series sheet, I don't know if Mantle is in the ninth slot of a row on a 4th Series sheet if it was printed upside down.

[Exhibitman]

I've been collecting Topps print anomalies for a long time and nothing looks like that one that I've seen.

You can rule out a wet sheet transfer if both images face the right way. A wet sheet transfer is always backwards because it is just a stamp of the correctly printed card surface on top of the card that picks up the transfer:



It is also always a single color, because colors were applied singly, and the odds of all of the inks being wet are non-existent.

The cards are printed using transfer technology: the ink on the plate transfers to a rubber mat and the mat presses onto the cardboard, which makes the image face the right way on the cardboard. It is like looking at a mirror image in a mirror: ><> On rare occasion, the plate prints directly onto the stock instead of the rubber mat (no transfer of ink) and you get a vivid backwards print of one color:



In that one, you can see that the Killebrew front is missing one of the black ink passes and that it got the back blacking on the front instead, but in reverse. The sheet went through the press wrong-side up and got between the plate and the mat. Never should have gotten out the door.

It is possible to get a situation where the company mistakenly reprints one sheet over another and no one catches it. That usually results from a sheet being put into another stack of sheets after having been printed already. Here is a Bowman:



You can also get a 'double-struck' sheet where the black is run twice by accident. That results in an offset doubled set of black lines. I have a few but no scans to share.

Now, if print issues were all the issue was with the Mantle-Killebrew, I'd say the card may be OK. But being from two separate series and it happens to be two of the biggest stars? Something is fishy there. What I suspect is that someone took a Killebrew and printed a Mantle image on its back.

[Kevvyg1026]

Thanks Cliff, another rabbit hole to chase (LOL).I only have about 12 significant miscuts for the series 4 (88cards) and haven't even considered trying to reconstruct it.

[bnorth]

Does anyone even think the picture of the back of the card in the first post is a real 1961 Topps card? If so when did you ever see a 61 Topps with a white back. The words BATS: LEFT and several others are snow white. Heck you can see the border of the Mantle printed on it the back is so light colored.

[steve B]

That they come from series so far apart and that the card border is printed makes me think it's likely fake. I've seen less likely things pass grading, so a bunch of dealers/auctions thinking it's real is no surprise.
If it was real and I was shown the card at a show, and I had the money I'd have made an offer. it seems they didn't like it that much.

The other sort of multiple impression is a weird one, during press adjustment the registration can be far out of adjustment, while adjusting, the press cane be running, and print to the blanket multiple times but less well inked each time. Then when a sheet is pulled to check it will have multiple impressions. Stranger when it's a multi color press, and the location of the paper is what moves the registration.
Like this, black and Magenta, so two color press. Way off at first, but brought pretty close over 6-7 revolutions. Blue and yellow also, but only a couple revolutions.