Who spilled blue ink all over my 1976 high numbers?

[steve B]

The more I look at these, the more I think it's not ink spatter. If it was and was as bad as it looks, it should extend into and across the borders.
But it doesn't.

[Cliff Bowman]

Originally Posted by steve B

The more I look at these, the more I think it's not ink spatter. If it was and was as bad as it looks, it should extend into and across the borders.
But it doesn't.

You are right, other than the Hank Aaron RB where there a few areas of blue ink splatter in his name inside the blue box, every card with the blue dots is only affected in the photo, it never gets into the white border or the colored border area around the photo. Apparently the photos were the first phase of the process of constructing the sheets and were placed on the sheet after being splattered with the blue ink, and then the colored borders, outer white borders, player names, player positions, and team names were put on the sheet later in the sheet creation process. This flaw is recurring, and there are several more cards from the two sheets with blue ink dots, these are just the worst examples with the flaw. ETA, the two sheets with the flaw were originally printed together as one huge 264 card sheet before they were cut in half to make two 132 card sheets.

[steve B]

It's a puzzle.

What would have been done would be a pasteup original of the cards (Or the photos), which got photographed through color filters and a screen.
Each color for CMYK would get it's own negative, so blue spatter inside a blue area like the Aaron RB wouldn't be a surprise.

Any spatter of anything on the blue negative or the original would turn up on the plate. But spatter on the negative should turn up as white spots.

At the shop I worked for, the camera guy once shot an entire job right after both a liquid lunch and "cleaning" the camera room - which mostly stirred up dust. I got to spend a couple days in the stripping department finding spots and fixing them with some stuff like red whiteout. And that was nowhere near as bad as these cards.

I suspect some spatter in the developing of the negatives that left blank spots on the blue negative. It's pretty bad they let that through.

[Cliff Bowman]

It's been a loooooong time since I found one of these, mainly because I haven't looked, but a Joe Decker popped up. There should be similar examples of J R Richard and Fernando Arroyo because of their placement on the sheet but I haven't been able to find either one.

[G1911]

These are great, the kind of odd defects I love to see.

[Harliduck]

Wow, glad these are posted...about a dozen years ago I bought a complete mint set on ebay that was advertised as coalated from vender lots. I was super impressed with the condition...set is outstanding....except the nasty blue ink on the back half! Some are insane...ive been meaning to ask here and was going to post some pics. Just cool to see there is an actual story...my plan was to replace them...

[Cliff Bowman]

Originally Posted by Harliduck

Wow, glad these are posted...about a dozen years ago I bought a complete mint set on ebay that was advertised as coalated from vender lots. I was super impressed with the condition...set is outstanding....except the nasty blue ink on the back half! Some are insane...ive been meaning to ask here and was going to post some pics. Just cool to see there is an actual story...my plan was to replace them...

I would be glad to take the ones I need and severe ones like Knowles and Oglivie off of your hands.

[bnorth]

Originally Posted by Cliff Bowman

It's been a loooooong time since I found one of these, mainly because I haven't looked, but a Joe Decker popped up. There should be similar examples of J R Richard and Fernando Arroyo because of their placement on the sheet but I haven't been able to find either one.

Those are cool looking cards. I bought a few cases of 1989 Topps DoubleHeaders and about half the Mark McGwires had red spots like that on the Rookie side. Strangely it was the only card that had the spots.

[JollyElm]

Just saw this one (literally one, as in #1) newly listed on eBay (not mine)...

s-l1600-15.jpg

[Cliff Bowman]

Originally Posted by JollyElm

Just saw this one (literally one, as in #1) newly listed on eBay (not mine)...

Attachment 473366

Thank you! That is one of the more difficult ones to find. I finally found a nice Fernando Arroyo.