Show...me...your print variations!

[steve B]

I think the other 90's related to the Thomas should be recognized. Each is just as tough if not tougher because commons don't get much attention. (Took me more than 2 years to find an 88T Canseco to finish the set and he's not exactly a common)

But I don't think it will happen anytime soon. The Thomas was an obvious error on a really popular card and was in guides early on.
The first time I saw one the seller wasn't sure of it and to me it looked like a print error. So the others would have been treated the same way if they'd been noticed. And for better or worse, pricing and acceptance revolved around Beckett and they always downplayed print errors.

Obviously neither they or the standard catalog could list every difference, especially once the huge production of the late 80's began. And even now there are dealers that put minor print errors out there as "variations" often with what I'll politely call "imaginative pricing". If a major price guide began listing actual small differences to an audience with no understanding of the technical aspects that sort of thing would only be worse.

Especially for stuff in the questionable category. I have a couple 1991T partial wrong backs. Player cards with the underlying pink that's not a player card background but a manager background. Are they ones where they were printed on a sheet intended to be a different sheet? Like one printed with the pink from say the A sheet then finished with the blue and front from the C sheet? Or was the pink back plate made wrong. Eventually I'll compare the sheet layouts and see if any normal sheet matches up. If it does, they're probably the first, and "just" print errors - uncommon but errors. If none of the normal layouts match they're likely actual major variations that escaped notice for years.

Steve B