Topps 1952 Campos..new variation

[steve B]

Originally Posted by Zach Wheat

Steve,

Interesting stuff. In one of the more unfortunate incidents in the '78 set, a number of cards for Molitor/Trammel are found with a thumb print at the bottom. Most of the cards I had, contained a red thumb print. I assume this most likely would have been caused by the press operators smudging the red layer so ink stuck to an area it shouldn't have been able to stick.

Thanks for taking the time to post all of this information.

Z Wheat

That was probably a print on the negative. Must have been a solid one to show so clearly. The plates are constantly wet, inked, then pressed onto the rubber offset blanket, so a fingerprint on the plate wouldn't last long.

None of the guys I worked with wore gloves, so the plates must have had loads of prints and I never saw one print.

I did see plenty from pranks
The ink is really sticky. And a tiny bit will spread very well by almost any contact.
So the typical prank was to take a tiny bit of some interesting color- purple, pink, orange .........and put the smallest dab of it on the side of something that's normally out of view. The backside of the levers on the press, the underside of the mens room doorknob, the handle of a broom, handle of the coffee pot.
The target gets a bit of ink on his hand, and most people have itches or sweat to wipe away or long hair that needs brushing away from the eyes...
And they end up looking like a sloppy reject from blue man group.
They main culprit got me a couple times one day, and in return I inked his entire press with 7-8 colors while he was at lunch.
The fun ended one day when he inked the press dept foremans desk.

Steve B