1971 Topps Blue Border Steve Garvey?

[steve B]

Originally Posted by Mark70Z

Steve,

I know you have knowledge in the printing industry so what would the Steve Garvey, Glenn Beckert and Brooks Robinson cards pictured be called in the printing industry that have a finished back and just part of the colors that go into a finished card on the front?

There's not really much for technical terms that can easily be applied without seeing the entire sheet.

They're all unfinished product, the Beckert less finished than the others.

The most likely thing is that they're from make ready sheets, excess sheets used for press adjustment. And for some reason they didn't get used for the black layer - Or for Beckert only the blue layer.
Those sheets might have been sheets spoiled somehow during the printing of the backs. So part of the whole sheet might have had poor inking of either back color, or some other problem.

Other possibilities - They're missing colors because of some mishap in the printing. Maybe two sheets fed at the same time, maybe a prior sheet came apart and a peeled off section blocked the color (Almost impossible for the Beckert) Maybe a piece of foreign matter another piece of paper, or something got into the press and blocked the black. Maybe the sheet misfed and got jammed.
All would lead to some or all of the sheet missing at least one color.

That stuff would usually get used as makeready sheets for whatever was next on that same stock. (The 79s with 78 backs were found either in sheets or strips at a landfill if I recall the story right, as sheets they were probably make ready sheets. )


Of course, at the print shop I was at only the sheets on the press were make ready sheets the others were called by a rather general technical term "trash"

If we'd printed any cards, I'd have some cool stuff, as I'd have made off with as much of that as I could carry. We had to pay to have it hauled away, so I'm sure the boss would have been ok with it. My card box dividers for a few years were cut from the discarded margins of some cardstock cover -maybe a college catalog?

Steve B