81 Fleer new variation.

[steve B]

Originally Posted by GasHouseGang

When does a card pass from being a print defect to a "variation"? Does it have to be reoccurring and then it's a variation? I'm not trying to be smart, I really want to know.

It really does depend on who you ask.
Some only count intentional corrections of errors. (Or less commonly intentional errors created while fixing errors in other cards)

There are a lot of recurring printing varieties that are due to differences between say the first blue plate and the second or third or... Lots of plates to produce millions of something.

Some may not be intentional, like the 91 Topps with backs that glow under UV or not. That might be just cards from a different printer who used a different ink.

Then there's a ton of stuff that has to be filed under maybe? Like the Upper Deck cards using hologram foil from a different set or year.
Or 93 upper deck where the gloss on the back comes three ways for a portion of the set.
Gloss only over the picture
Gloss over the entire back.
Gloss over just the picture AND an additional layer covering the entire back.


This particular card would technically be a print defect, because of the likely cause being a damaged mask used to produce the red plate. But like many, if it's a big enough difference it usually gets considered.

The hundreds of trivial ones are interesting to me, but are mostly caused by dust or debris in the equipment or room during the phase when the negatives used to create the mask were made. I've found them on nearly every card, some are specific to a press run, others are constant throughout.

There is an odd effect I've found on many where the halftone appears to be lines of varying thickness instead of dots. I'm still not real sure about those, because there were also a handful that looked somewhere in between. (Unlike 88 Score where the angle of the halftone pattern changed)

[steve B]

A couple other oddities I didn't scan yet, and may have trouble locating again.

A fiber similar to the pointing hands that is in blue. And which appears in different places on the card. mostly consistent, except for moving a bit between one run and the next.

A card with a "white" dot in the background on the left side. But it has a halftone dot pattern in blue, which doesn't line up with the rest of the blue pattern. To me it appears to have been done by hand on the mask as it carries over between print runs. An intentional repair that's so small it's hard to even notice at all. Some really fine work by the stripping dept, less so by the camera dept. And why didn't they fix the hundreds of other random dots and specks?