1989 Topps oddity

[con40]

The stock Topps used from 1952 through 1991 is called C1S clay-coated chipboard. It's cheap cardboard stock made from unbleached "chips" of wood pulp (the garbage screened away from higher quality stock). This chipboard is then skinned with a thin clay-coated (giving it good ink holdout) white stock. The two stocks are adhered to make the final sheet.

If this Elster card truly has a chipboard back, chipboard border, and white clay coat under the printed area, the only way it could have been made was by removing the white stock in the border area.

There is a chemical process to achieve this look. Kevin Saucier knew how to do it. What I don't know is if it can be done in such a precise manner.

On the other hand, if this is a gold or tan color in the border area, then it would indicate that the card was printed with a fifth color (a solid tan ink) to fill in the border areas. If so, it's possible that Tops could have masked up a 132-card full sheet (or 66-card half sheet) and printed all the borders on each card. When trimmed, this is what the final cards would look like. If that's the case, there should be more of these out there. Even on a test basis, Topps would have printed at least 100-200 sheets.

[ALR-bishop]

Keith-- seller claimed he had several of them, all from F sheet

[Footballdude]

Would be interesting to see the border area magnified, like 60x or so. Not sure if a typical flatbed scanner can get that close, but one of those Intel microscopes (QX3 or QX5) sure would. I'd be curious to see if the border has a dot pattern or is solid colored.

[jacksoncoupage]

Someone had a partial sheet of these a few years ago. I believe they were posting on the PSA CU forums about it. They had one of these gold bordered sheets cut up and the singles sold off on ebay. The same person also had a blackless sheet (or partial sheet) from 1989 Topps as well, which also was cut up and sold on ebay as singles.

[philliesphan]

Al-

I have a Nick Leyva 1989 Topps just like your gold Elster-

[onlychild]

Yes, there is a chemical process to remove the ink that looks pretty cool. It would probably not be a problem on the straight borders as in the Elster card. Removing around the letters and difficult curves would be tough. Not sure it could be done.

Kevin Saucier

[ALR-bishop]

Kevin -- thanks for chiming in here. What are you up to these days ?

[onlychild]

Been away from this hobby for some time. Here is one card I've had for years with the ink chemically removed. Makes for a neat novelty.

[frankhardy]

I was able to snag a John Morris for my Cardinals collection this week. Any more news on these?