Printer's Scrap?

[aelefson]

I have one. It is a 1967 Topps Tom Kelley, but it is hard to tell that from the front! The first scan shows the card right side up, the next one, upside down, and the final one shows the normal reverse.

Alan

[brob28]

Very cool Alan. Do you remember where you picked it up?

[Exhibitman]

I have a 67 like that as well. Pretty dramatic stuff when the printer flips the sheet between color runs



Leaf was notorious for it; check out the top 3:

[brob28]

Neat stuff Adam. What amazes me is how much of a premium people pay for this type of thing in the T206 "world". This type of thing (at least to my knowledge) does not command a premium in the post-war world. Still to me those are really interesting and in particular those '67's have a great look!

[steve B]

I think a lot of that goes back to Beckett.

Their stock answer about printing problems is that they're curiosities with little or no added value except maybe to player collectors.

For some of the typical mistakes and minor mistakes that's about right.

But for the more spectacular examples it's really not.

I think for T206 collectors some of it is that the set can be "completed" -at least to 520 or 518 fairly easily if you've got the money.
Backs can be had fairly easily too, at least to the level of around 12-13 of 15 brands, (Or 13-14 of 16 if you count the Ty Cobb back ) And 31 of 35 if you go by series and factory.
But misprints are a lot tougher, and add some interest.

I think eventually some errors will get attention in postwar cards. The trick is that some errors are more available for some years/companies than others. 71s missing the black on the back are more common than the same error for most years. Blank backs are pretty tough until about the mid 80's, late 80's early 90's they're common. That makes figuring out a value more difficult.

The ones I regret passing up were a handful of 72 Baseball printed on the wrong sides of the card - so fronts on the cardstock back, and backs on the white finished front. I only saw them mentioned in one small auction in SCD years ago. But the minimum bid was something like $200 each which was just way too much at the time.

Steve B

[Exhibitman]

I dunno, Bill, those damned Leaf misprints cost me 20x what a comparable condition card of the same guy would have. Not that I'm griping--they are unique and eye-catching. Leaf is so bad that I'm assembling an all-mistakes set: misprints, missing colors, wrong backs, miscuts.

I think the attraction of printing freaks when it comes to a mainstream set is that it gives you something no one else has and no one else can really hope to have. If you carefully assemble a collection of them it is really quite a sight. An added bonus is that unless/until the set gets hot, the cards are considered trash and are sold for pennies on the dollar compared to a 'better' version. A PSA 8 1971 Munson can run you several hundred dollars; I paid five bucks for this one:



And if the freaks pick up interest, wow, you can make a ton on them if you sell into the wave.

I try to collect one really FUBARed card of each type--misprinted front, bad miscut, blank back, wet sheet transfer, etc.--for each set and I prefer HOFers, just to make it interesting, but I take the ones I can get. Like, here is my 1969 group:





As for scraps, I find the ones that actually got out more interesting than the stuff that went out the back door of the factory. I suppose the 'oops' factors into that preference; I love the idea that someone's screw-up wasn't caught and is forever immortalized.

[steve B]

That Jackson fascinates me.

From all the Topps sheets I've seen it shouldn't have the black bit at the right. It almost looks like part of a card from a totally different set.

Sort of like the Milton Bradley 68's.

Is the back normal ?

Steve B

[tedzan]

TED Z

[brob28]

Wow, love that last Billy Johnson Ted!

[ALR-bishop]

Looks like anything that could go wrong did

[tedzan]

Originally Posted by brob28

Wow, love that last Billy Johnson Ted!

This card was in an original 1949 LEAF gum pack.....Incidently, its back is a normal printing.

TED Z

[tedzan]

TED Z

[tulsaboy]

Has anyone ever seen these? Though the scrap is not baseball, the use for the scrap is...

Several years ago I bought a handful of boxes of the 1981 Coke cards in their original 3 cards to a pack packages. The boxes only contained packs from one team per box. The boxes I purchased were the Astros and Royals boxes. There were (I think) about 48 packs to a box. The boxes were formatted just like a normal Topps wax box, but the outside is totally white with no printing whatsoever. Some of the interiors were blank as well, but on a couple of them that I saved, the insides appeared to be the back sides of a sheet of the Topps "Black Hole" set from 1979. Has anyone ever seen unused sheets of cards used in this manner? Thought it might be interesting to someone here...

kevin

[steve B]

That's cool! I haven't seen that done on the coke boxes.

I have Black hole and 78 baseball inside bazooka boxes.

They must have had a huge backlog of unfinished Black Hole sheets to be using them two years later.

Steve B

[tedzan]

Uncut 36-card sheet with missing colors














TED Z