T205 Doc White No Quotes not correct

[marcdelpercio]

Andrew,
I have three of these and have looked at them with a loupe. I see nothing on mine that suggest that the quotes were printed, even faintly. On one of them, there is a bit of staining in the area, so I can't say conclusively on that one, but I also have a SGC 30 and SGC 50 that are very clear and show no signs of the marks.

To assume that this was just a "print error", you would have to say that there was only one printing of this card, as it would be extremely unlikely that the same "error" would have been made on multiple, independent print runs. It would seem very strange to have one separate print run with only the "error" Polar Bear back and then several other runs with the other backs, in which all of the typesetting would have been replaced to show the quote marks. This would be especially difficult to accept as this is not a short printed card, such as the Wilhelm variation, for example, for which a much lower number of cards were printed overall.

I do agree that regardless of whether it is considered a true variation, print error, or none of the above, the market has dictated that there is a modest premium for it and it does seem to be a scarce card to run across over the past couple of years. I don't expect that this will ever have more than a small premium attached, but the fact that it is different than the others, for whatever reason, I think will always give it a bit of added interest and value.