What is the origin of Frank Thomas NNOF?

[isiahfan]

I've only seen one like yours before & it was in 1990 in Florida: a 1989 Topps card with a shadow name like yours and part of the wavy box with the name inside was shadowed also. Those are usually caught and only occur on one part of the 100-card sheet affected one; maybe two rows of cards. So when these errors occur the maximum that wind up on the 11 (vertical) X 10 (horizontal) sheets is 20-cards. I wouldn't doubt that an employee at the printer kept one for himself only, then it eventually made its way into the hobby.

From the 1980's- early 1990's base cards were printed with a dry ink. When the cartridge started running out a buzzer would sound. At times employees would literally fall asleep (printing was 24/7) and many sheets would print with partial black ink (always the first color to run out) as it was used more frequently on most year cards. That's what happened to your card. Most of the ink ran out on the bottom on the card affecting only the name. Since it was dry ink, it would run out on certain areas in different degrees before it ran out everywhere. Liquid ink doesn't do that. They used liquid ink exclusively since 1995. Employees were supposed to destroy every sheet affected by dry ink cartridges, but when some slipped through it was always DONE ON PURPOSE by the printer employees (paid minimum wage, so they didn't care).

This is how SO MANY wrong back, bland back/front cards wound up in the hobby from the late 1980's to early 1990's as well. It started with Kruk Cards buying ALL these cards from Topps (hundreds of thousands of them) that they sold in 3,000-5,000 count boxes in the 2000's-2015. I have a 5,000 count box of these & a few crazy errors!