Top 100 Errors / Variations and the state of collections these cards prior to 1985

[steve B]

I started really collecting in late 77, and saw the Nozaki list sometime around early 78?
I knew about the errors and variations, but very few were a big deal with any lasting interest. Most of what's listed are good candidates for a list.
Mine? A shorter list focused mostly on the cards popular at the time.

Magie - one of the big deal cards, and one that was just never seen

The 74 Washington National League. - from my first full year collecting! and at least in my neighborhood a big deal. Didn't get many, and the rumors about them and other cards in the set- or not... Was there or wasn't there a checklist for Washington? (Nope)
And the card that never existed - and As manager card with a question mark instead of a photo supposedly because the manager was named a bit late. No idea where that came from, but I did look for that card for a few years.

79 Bump Wills - First real major variation in a few years, it was popular until

1981- Fleer Graig/Craig Nettles. That was THE card to get that year. Yes, Fleer had a bunch of other variations, as did Donruss and Topps. Some of the others especially the hands on the fleer made a lot of people think the variations were deliberate. (To me- The Topps ones were just their usual sloppiness, the Donruss were from them rushing the set and fixing mistakes later. And most of the Fleer were the same. The fingers I thought were deliberate and done to add to their sales.

82 Fleer - Littlefield reversed negative another "must get" variation, but at a time when the whole variations thing had mostly run out of gas.
82 Topps Blackless - not well understood at the time, also pretty popular in a time of fading interest.

89 Ripken F - Just difficult enough and just flashy/shocking enough to generate a lot of interest even outside of the hobby.

90 Topps - Thomas NNOF. Tough enough that it was years before I saw one in person, and thought it was just a printing flaw. (It is, but more interesting than I'd thought.)
90 Donruss- Not all that tough for the most part, but not always easy. Briefly popular and gave a bit of life to variation collecting.

After that.... and even before that, well into the junk wax era, where some most? sets were produced in multiple plants and like 91 Fleer had trivial variations on pretty much every card. That sort of knocked variation collecting back. Like how many cards does anyone really want where it's like
A - Whole ankle shows
B - almost all of ankle shows.
I really like variations, and even I don't chase that stuff (although I do chase stuff that's even worse, like 93UD back gloss differences, and general UD hologram changes.)

Honorable mention although they didn't have much effect at all - George C Miller having two different backs for each card.... shocking when I learned of it. They're uncommon enough, but they did two different small press runs? What the _