Questions for Any Topps Printing Experts Out There...

[nolemmings]

Very good information--thanks Dave.

[JollyElm]

With regard to printers, this is from PSA's site:

"Another problem arose early on when Topps faced a higher demand for the second-series (#110 - #196) cards than the quantity they had originally ordered from their contract printer, Zabel Brothers of Philadelphia, PA. Since Zabel was about to start printing the third series cards, additional second series printing plates were accordingly shipped to another printer in upstate New York to handle this increased demand.

The name of that printing company is still uncertain, but speculation has it that Stecher-Traung of Rochester, a leading printer of seed packets, fruit crate labels, and nurseryman's plates, was the production source. (Stecher-Traung is also believed to have printed a portion of the 1952 Topps baseball set, cards which have been found in large quantities in Canada.)

Regardless of who actually took on the job, the plates were allegedly damaged in transit, and the entire second series of cards had to be reprinted. But once they were recreated, there was still one problem: either someone forgot to print the magenta plates, or the magenta color separations were made incorrectly. The result? Large swatches of bright lime green on certain cards and washed-out, yellowish flesh tones on others.

The theory that a second, new set of plates was prepared for the extra cards is supported by the eight pose variations mentioned earlier. The first seven are: #129A+B Lee Walls (facing left and right respectively), #132 A+B (Los Angeles Angels Team card, with and without two small inset photos), #134A+B (Billy Hoeft facing left and straight ahead), #147A+B (Bill Kunkel in a portrait and in a pitching pose), #174 A+B (Carl Willey with and without a cap), #176 A+B (Eddie Yost in a portrait pose and batting), and #190 A+B (Wally Moon in a portrait pose and batting)."

----

Of course, they also say, "This card shows Ruth teeing off against a stadium background, and on the green tint version (#139B), the field is completely green and part of the left-field foul pole is visible." (emphasis added), so you have to take anything they say with a grain of salt.
That statement always drives me crazy, because people act like lemmings and just repeat that description of the card and it is COMPLETELY AND UTTERLY wrong!!! The pole they are referring to is deep in the stands behind the dugout area and could possibly be some sort of support beam, a flag pole or just an odd anomaly. Nobody with even the tiniest shred of knowledge regarding the game of baseball would ever refer to that as a foul pole. It's way behind the batter and in the stands, for cripes sake!!
babe.jpg

[JollyElm]

A bit of a cool revelation here…

I borrowed a page from the pre-war side and started trying to find as many miscut or way off center GT's that I could get my hands on to see if I could see where some of the cards were situated on the phantom printing sheets (so far I've matched about ten pairs of cards). So I put this Kasko here against every single green tint card there is and I couldn't find a match. And it took for-frickin'-ever!! Then I had an idea. Most every person I've talked to about these cards has always been under the impression that checklist #192 with the words “Check List, 3” (with a comma) was the green tint version. That's probably because, as an error card, there are fewer of them around? Not really sure. I assumed the same thing, but it's never been based on anything but accepting the status quo. I decided to grab the scan of what I considered my 'non-GT' version of the checklist and holy heck!!! It matched perfectly (For clarity's sake, I'll point out that the two cards here weren't both scanned at 100% and at the same time on a level plane. They were from different sources and had to be carefully resized. This is why they aren't a perfect fit, just very nearly perfect.)

I believe this to be the first time ever that absolute, verifiable proof has been provided to show the true GT checklist is the version without the comma. Well, to put it more precisely, this proves that at least some of the non-comma checklists are GT's. To play devil's advocate, it is possible that the checklist with the comma was also printed somewhere else on the GT sheets…but I believe that to be unlikely.

It's also important to note that many other non-comma checklists don't share the same precise woodgrain border as the card pictured here, so if you want to make absolutely sure that you have a GT checklist, look to the upper left white corner. The telltale sign is the appearance of those three or four thick, dark, vertical lines.

kaskochecklistGT.jpg

If anyone else has scans of miscut green tints, please give me a shout. They might help in this thankless task!

[SMPEP]

Sorry for the super snmall size on the big one. Only photo of the sheet I managed to find.

[SMPEP]

Two more for you

[JollyElm]

Another very cool revelation…

While continuing to painstakingly match up any and all o/c pieces of GT's that I can find, I made another discovery and have proven once and for all that checklist #98 was part of the run. Traditionally, only numbers 110-196 were listed as green tints, so this adds a new piece to the puzzle. I'm sure others have surmised that this checklist was a part of the GT set, but now I have 'officially' matched it up. In looking at hundreds of these cards, it became obvious that they feature a number of different woodgrain schematics and that's what made the search so difficult. But now I present to you checklist #98 as it appeared with Leo Posada and Gene Woodling on the printing sheet. So far, only cards featuring the specific woodgrain pattern shown can be said to be true GT versions. The checklist may have appeared in other places on the sheet(s) with different woodgrains, but I have no verifiable proof of that at the moment.

[jmoran19]

Better pic of the series 5 132 card sheet posted above

[jmoran19]

unfinished series 6 44 card sheet with same players as 6 card sheet above

[Rich Klein]

Originally Posted by jmoran19

Better pic of the series 5 132 card sheet posted above

The rows beginning with Larry Sherry and Bill Virdon are only printed once on this sheet. Now there are not as many 5th Series SP Legends as other years but I would nor be surprised if those 2 rows are Shorter Printed. I know I rarely see the Homer Kings card (#401) for sale.

Rich