Errors & Variations: A Love Story

[bnorth]

I love the error and variation cards. I have 1000's of them with a mix of about any type error/variation you can imagine. It really changes from day to day what kind is my favorite. My all-time favorite cards are a 1990 Score wrong back pair of Wade Boggs and Roger Clemens. They are my #1 and 2 favorite players so that makes the cards much more special to me. They are also centered front and back unlike most wrong backs.

[steve B]

I've got a pretty wide range of oddities in my collection.

Printing errors get kept in their own box. Foiling can be entirely missing with no impression (Usually printers scrap, or unfinished sheets that "somehow" got out of the printing plant. Missing with the impression - went through the foiling machine, but the foil either wasn't there, or wasn't on its backing paper. Partly missing - the backing paper got stamped, foil went on a card, next one comes along and the foiling paper hasn't advanced enough so it only gets some foil can look pretty weird.

Variations - I keep stuff I know isn't a trivial error, but is a repeated thing that was on the plate. Some of these are very trivial, but they are different.
Bigger stuff, but hardly ever cataloged by anyone. 88 Score with 3 different die cuts, 93 Upper deck with three different gloss patterns, 89 Donruss with different gloss or not, 91 Topps with the several different backs....that sort of thing.

Plus the listed ones that I can find. Like the 79 Wills.

There's a few that don't readily fit a category. Like black diamond one year they messed up the plates and made a bunch of wrong backs. They're variations, but appear to be printing errors.

Basically, if it's weird enough it gets saved.

Steve B

[mouschi]

Originally Posted by steve B

I've got a pretty wide range of oddities in my collection.

Printing errors get kept in their own box. Foiling can be entirely missing with no impression (Usually printers scrap, or unfinished sheets that "somehow" got out of the printing plant. Missing with the impression - went through the foiling machine, but the foil either wasn't there, or wasn't on its backing paper. Partly missing - the backing paper got stamped, foil went on a card, next one comes along and the foiling paper hasn't advanced enough so it only gets some foil can look pretty weird.

Variations - I keep stuff I know isn't a trivial error, but is a repeated thing that was on the plate. Some of these are very trivial, but they are different.
Bigger stuff, but hardly ever cataloged by anyone. 88 Score with 3 different die cuts, 93 Upper deck with three different gloss patterns, 89 Donruss with different gloss or not, 91 Topps with the several different backs....that sort of thing.

Plus the listed ones that I can find. Like the 79 Wills.

There's a few that don't readily fit a category. Like black diamond one year they messed up the plates and made a bunch of wrong backs. They're variations, but appear to be printing errors.

Basically, if it's weird enough it gets saved.

Steve B

*jitters* ... you don't by any chance have any weirdo Canseco stuff do you???

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As a side note, I had someone say that they seriously doubted the production figures I posted on the 90 NNOF Thomas. I posted a response and another musing that I thought would be worthwhile to post here:

You may be right, however, I think sometimes we vastly underestimate the # of collectors out there and the # of Topps cards produced + unopened. The psa population report currently shows 173 of them and bgs shows 87. Whether that is the lion's share of them or a sliver of them, I'm unsure. All I know is that I've never sent anything to be authenticated before.

On a different note, I've been thinking about how many collectors there are out there. For example:
The population report shows over 2,700 PSA 10 89 UD Griffey rookies. These currently fetch between $400 and $500 each! I couldn't imagine there are that many collectors out there to support this price, but they are selling, and surely this # of psa 10's will continue to go up.

Even more eye-popping is Jordan's fleer rookie. Nearly 2,500 psa 9's in the population report yet they are going between 5-6k. WHAAA?? This has really opened my eyes to thinking that we collectors aren't just a group of 150 nerdy adults scattered all around America

Just as a bonus: pop report on the famous '52 Topps Mantle? 1,177!