Topps 67 Baseball w/ Discolored Backs

[steve B]

I'd posted a brief thought about it on the original thread.

I think it's a combination of things.
If the cards were stored in a regular cardboard box that degraded the acid from that would affect the cards that were touching it.

I also think there are some interesting things about late 60's Topps cards as far as the cardboard goes. Some have the natural cardboard while others have a layer of white printed before the back. I'm also fairly sure some like 67 are a layered stock with the fronts glued onto a basic cardboard.
And that some of the cardboard used was better quality once in a while.

All those things could lead to effects like the ones shown. Especially the breakdown of the cardboard box.
Even the white ones currently sold. Some of my older ones are getting quite browned from age.

Plastic sleeves will help prevent it.


I love the all green backs! There's a few thigs that could do that.
1) Plate without the blank areas.
2) Running the press dry. The printing relies on a damp plate that the oily onk won't stick to, and if the water is allowed to run out the plate picks up solid color.
3) Similar to 2, but a loose bit of paper that gets stuck to the plate will pick up and transfer solid color too. But it's usually not a good solid print.

So my vote would be #2.

Steve B

[ALR-bishop]

Good post as usual, Steve

[BranchRickey56]

Good Ideas and thoughts, Steve.

Your suggestion that the fading could be caused by acidic reaction from the boxes the cards were stored in makes sense, but only if the faded cards were touching the box cardboard. There seem to be way too many cards affected for that to be the main cause; perhaps 20% of my set of (so far) 544 shows some sort of color problem.

Steve, could discoloration be caused by touching other cards in storage, rather than touching the box? In other words, could you see an acidic reaction/discoloration caused by another card touching a given card, or by cards touching each other?

Also, I have over 500 cards from the 1965 BB set, almost none of which show this amount of browning. Does anyone have cards with this discoloration from the '68 or '69 sets? (As I mentioned, my cards from those sets were "borrowed" by the movers, so I don't have examples for comparison.)

I don't know anything about cardboard and how it's made, so your idea that Topps used different kinds of cardboard in different years is intriguing. Is there evidence that they may have done this or do you just think they might have based on what you've seen?

Again, thanks for the feedback and great ideas!

[BranchRickey56]

And by the way, Al, I'm especially fond of the "Alvin-Dark-as-Little-Orphan-Annie" card you showed from the "Who AM I?" set.

If you know anything about his personality, it makes it esp. funny!

[ALR-bishop]

Greg---I mentioned that I don't notice this issue with my 67 backs, but all of my set, and all the dupes, are and have been separated in sheets in binders.

I have the baseball subset of the regularly issued Who Am I issue, both scratched and unscratched. So when Topps Vault offered this proof sheet involving regular 67 cards with disguises, I really wanted it