Some pretty cool new(?) 1963 Topps Printing Error/Variations

[1963Topps Set]

Here is a list of wrong backs in my 1963 Topps Set. Interesting first card as neither lived to see the beginning of the 1964 season!

Ken Hubbs (15) / Jim Umbricht (99)
Bob Allison (75) John Buzhardt (35)
Jim Hickman (107) / Jim O'Toole (70)
Bomber's Best (173) / Juan Pizzaro (160) and Bubba Phillips (177) miscut wrong back
Joe Amalfitano (199) / Power Plus (242)
Mickey Mantle (200) / Billy O'Dell (235)
Red Sox Team (202) / Chico Fernandez (278)
1963 Rookie Stars (208) / Bob Miller (261)
Sandy Koufax (210) / Harvey Haddix (239)
Gene Conley (216) / Bob Allen (266)
Willie Davis (229) / Orlando Pena (214)
Pete Runnels (230) / Jim Grant (227)
Eli Grba (231) / Ed Mathews (275)
Casey Stengel (233) / Al Dark (258)
Jim Coates (237) / Ron Santo (252)
John Tsitouris (244) / Don Nottebart (204)
Jack Lamabe (251) / Sammy Taylor (273)
1963 Rookie Stars (253) / Billy Smith (241)
Bob Shaw (255) / Hank Aguirre (257)
Hank Aguirre (257) / Bob Shaw (255)
Johnny Logan (259) / Cookie Rojas (221)
Jim Gentile (260) / Leo Burke (249)
Bob Miller (261) / 1963 Rookie Stars (208)
Ellis Burton (262) / Phil Linz (264)
Vada Pinson (265) / Joe Jay (225)
Felipe Alou (270) / Mike Roarke (224)
Danny Murphy (272) / Don Demeter (268)
Sammy Taylor (273) / Jack Lamabe (251)
Ed Mathews (275) / Eli Grba (231)
Chico Fernandez (278) / Red Sox Team (202)
Bob Del Greco (282) / Lee Stange (246)
Roy Sievers (283) / 1963 Rookie Stars (228)
Del Crandall (460) / Phil Regan (494)
Wally Post (462) / Charlie Neal (511)
Lou Brock (472) / Jerry Adair (488)
Gus Triandos (475) / Felix Torres (482)
Paul Brown (478) / Roland Sheldon (507)
Ed Brinkman (479) / Ray Sadecki (486)
Jim Landis (485) / Indians Team (451)
Walt Bond (493) / Joe Schaffernoth (463)
Curt Flood (505) / Jay Hook (469)
Roland Sheldon (507) / Paul Brown (478)
Bob Clemente (540) / Don Mossi (530)
Al Worthington (556) / Jose Tartabull (449)

[Collectorsince62]

Check out the top border on these two. The blurriness is the actual card, not my scanner.

[Collectorsince62]

I'll try a closer look this time.

[Collectorsince62]

One more time

[toppcat]

A Long Island dealer named Dan Jacobsen had a 66 card partial sheet of framed 63's he used to bring to shows just because he liked showing it to people. IIRC it had issues similar to those above with the broken neatlines and unsaturated colors. I think he retired and moved but I'm not sure what happened to the sheet. Can't recall if the backs were errors though.

[Cliff Bowman]

Originally Posted by Collectorsince62

Check out the top border on these two. The blurriness is the actual card, not my scanner.

Those are out of register cards, I have seen several of them from 62, 63, 65, 66, 68, 69, and 70. 63 was a particularly bad year for them, I have seen some spectacular ones. Poor quality control in the 60’s.

[Cliff Bowman]

Originally Posted by 1963Topps Set

Here is a list of wrong backs in my 1963 Topps Set. Interesting first card as neither lived to see the beginning of the 1964 season!

Ken Hubbs (15) / Jim Umbricht (99)
Bob Allison (75) John Buzhardt (35)
Jim Hickman (107) / Jim O'Toole (70)
Bomber's Best (173) / Juan Pizzaro (160) and Bubba Phillips (177) miscut wrong back
Joe Amalfitano (199) / Power Plus (242)
Mickey Mantle (200) / Billy O'Dell (235)
Red Sox Team (202) / Chico Fernandez (278)
1963 Rookie Stars (208) / Bob Miller (261)
Sandy Koufax (210) / Harvey Haddix (239)
Gene Conley (216) / Bob Allen (266)
Willie Davis (229) / Orlando Pena (214)
Pete Runnels (230) / Jim Grant (227)
Eli Grba (231) / Ed Mathews (275)
Casey Stengel (233) / Al Dark (258)
Jim Coates (237) / Ron Santo (252)
John Tsitouris (244) / Don Nottebart (204)
Jack Lamabe (251) / Sammy Taylor (273)
1963 Rookie Stars (253) / Billy Smith (241)
Bob Shaw (255) / Hank Aguirre (257)
Hank Aguirre (257) / Bob Shaw (255)
Johnny Logan (259) / Cookie Rojas (221)
Jim Gentile (260) / Leo Burke (249)
Bob Miller (261) / 1963 Rookie Stars (208)
Ellis Burton (262) / Phil Linz (264)
Vada Pinson (265) / Joe Jay (225)
Felipe Alou (270) / Mike Roarke (224)
Danny Murphy (272) / Don Demeter (268)
Sammy Taylor (273) / Jack Lamabe (251)
Ed Mathews (275) / Eli Grba (231)
Chico Fernandez (278) / Red Sox Team (202)
Bob Del Greco (282) / Lee Stange (246)
Roy Sievers (283) / 1963 Rookie Stars (228)
Del Crandall (460) / Phil Regan (494)
Wally Post (462) / Charlie Neal (511)
Lou Brock (472) / Jerry Adair (488)
Gus Triandos (475) / Felix Torres (482)
Paul Brown (478) / Roland Sheldon (507)
Ed Brinkman (479) / Ray Sadecki (486)
Jim Landis (485) / Indians Team (451)
Walt Bond (493) / Joe Schaffernoth (463)
Curt Flood (505) / Jay Hook (469)
Roland Sheldon (507) / Paul Brown (478)
Bob Clemente (540) / Don Mossi (530)
Al Worthington (556) / Jose Tartabull (449)

Holy smokes! I didn’t even know these were on this thread. Those are the first 1st series wrong backs that I have heard of existing. There is something odd about the last one, either it is a misprint or it is the first 63 Topps wrong back that I am aware of that has a different series printed on the back than was printed on the front. Every 63 Topps wrong back that I have ever seen otherwise is simply the whole back sheet was printed upside down and the card on the back is the mirrored opposite of the card on the front on the sheet.

[Kevvyg1026]

If it's real, then a 6th series back sheet was in fed into a 7th series front

[Kevvyg1026]

There are s few more 1st series wrong backs. I will send post when I get home on Monday.

[Rich Klein]

As a person who actually wrote an E&V Column back in the day I can assure you that we all had individual ways of looking at things.

The Thomas NNOF came out of packs that way and it was such an obvious difference that it should have been a variation noted as such in 1990. Instead it did take a couple of years for widespread recognition.

I will say even today doing this type of work for COMC I'm more OK than ever with these subtle differences. Even if it's just in printing, if there is enough of a difference I don't mind adding it to the DB. That's on both a knowledge and a business sense.

To me the purest variation is something akin to the 1962 Topps Wally Moon card in which the poses are obviously different. The 1961 Fairly is an obvious printing issue but again fairly obvious which is why I'm fine with that one as well.

But, in reality, it's sometimes an individual decision but I'll listen to any and all logic on any of these

Rich

[ALR-bishop]

Rich--I personally think it was a huge mistake for PSA to recognize the 61 Fairly as a variation as opposed to leaving it a minor recurring print defect. Not only does the defect exist in varying degrees on that card, it exist on numerous other cards in the set as can be seen in current eBay listings. Admittedly it is as much a defect as the Herrer and Bakep, but the Internet has shown there are hundreds of similar or even more dramatic unrecognized print defects out there.

But I collect them if they are recurring, and since there is no official definition of a variation, and the catalog era has ended, variation recognition in the hobby will presumably be a haphazard process in the future

I much appreciate your cataloging efforts on COMC. I have made use of it on several occasions and would continue to do so if you can now do something about shipping times

[Rich Klein]

Originally Posted by ALR-bishop

Rich--I personally think it was a huge mistake for PSA to recognize the 61 Fairly as a variation as opposed to leaving it a minor recurring print defect. Not only does the defect exist in varying degrees on that card, it exist on numerous other cards in the set as can be seen in current eBay listings. Admittedly it is as much a defect as the Herrer and Bakep, but the Internet has shown there are hundreds of similar or even more dramatic unrecognized print defects out there.

But I collect them if they are recurring, and since there is no official definition of a variation, and the catalog era has ended, variation recognition in the hobby will presumably be a haphazard process in the future

I much appreciate your cataloging efforts on COMC. I have made use of it on several occasions and would continue to do so if you can now do something about shipping times

Al:

I would LOVE to be able to do things about shipping; however, because of COVID-19 requirements it's really hard for multiple people to do multiple pulling of cards at the same time. Ergo that is where the bottleneck occurs. Now if we could get Sue Richards to pull cards we'd be in much better shape on that front

Rich

[Cliff Bowman]

Being a printing error/variation collector for the past 20 years, especially with the explosion of information through eBay and chatboards, I was never interested in blank backs, wrong backs, or severe miscuts. It is only this recent interest in recreating vintage sheets such as the 1966 Topps high numbers that I became interested in wrong backs and severe miscuts off of certain sheets because those cards contain evidence of where they were placed on the sheet and which cards they were next to. If I find one on eBay, COMC, or Dean’s that is so obvious then I won’t even bother buying them, I will just get a scan. I will buy the ones that have just slivers of another card if I can get them cheap and then I try to make better scans and try to figure out which card it is.

[ALR-bishop]

Which is why Cliff is one of my go to guys on variations

[Kevvyg1026]

I know that the series 6 wrong backs have the backs printed upside down relative to what the regular back should be. What about the others you have? Are the series 1 , 2, and 3 wrong backs correctly oriented or are they upside down?

[Cliff Bowman]

Originally Posted by Kevvyg1026

I know that the series 6 wrong backs have the backs printed upside down relative to what the regular back should be. What about the others you have? Are the series 1 , 2, and 3 wrong backs correctly oriented or are they upside down?

From what I have seen, first series wrong backs resulted from the backs being switched on the giant 264 card sheet, or Slit A and Slit B as you refer to them, and all of the other 1963 series wrong backs resulted from the backs being flipped upside down, which is understandable with how the 63's were printed. The two exceptions are the first series S. Williams/Hendley wrong back, which I suspect may be from a 3 card salesman sample panel, and the Worthington/Tartabull wrong back which must have come from a very rare 7th series front sheet mistakenly printed with a 6th series back.

[Kevvyg1026]

If the first series backs are correctly oriented, then the two slits were oriented the way they are shown in the attached image. If the wrong backs are upside down, then one of the slits is flipped 180 degrees from that shown.

1963_series1_full.jpg

[Kevvyg1026]

While attempting to ascertain the printing pattern (slit configuration) for 1963 Topps series 5, came across this oddity for card # 395.

1963_395_double_back_print.jpg

[Kevvyg1026]

Just in case there is a question regarding which print run the yellow based checklist (#431) was issued, I found this marked card on ebay recently.

1963_431_marked.jpg

[Kevvyg1026]

After reading the article by Mr. Vrechek regarding the new 1963 series 5 variations, I looked for any uncut or miscut material for these cards. What I found suggests that the Series 5 printing looked like the following:

Slit A:
R/G
R/B U/D
R/Y
R/G U/D
Y/R
Y/R UD
G/O
G/Y U/D
R/G
R/B U/D
R/Y
R/G U/D

Slit B
Y/R
Y/R UD
G/O
G/Y U/D
R/G
R/B U/D
R/Y
R/G U/D
Y/R
Y/R UD
G/O
G/Y U/D

The one stripe version of the McBean card, along with the other variations associated with that, would be in the upside-down red border, green inset rows.

Based on this print configuration, the R/B, R/Y, Y/R (& Y/R upside down), G/Y, and G/O would all be printed 3x each across the sheet so 66 cards 3x each (198 cards), while the R/G would be printed 6x each (3 right side up, and 3 upside down). The variations would occur in equal numbers. So, no SPs exists in the series 5 printing.