1991 Topps variations

[Pat R]

[QUOTE=jacksoncoupage;2419844][QUOTE=Pat R;2419828]

Originally Posted by jacksoncoupage

I agree that layouts didn't change.

It seems like you are onto something with A*B* cards. Its just so bizarre to me that only 1/2 the sheet would get it but I understand why you think so, it sure is looking that way. I wish I had kept better track of the A*B* cards as they turned up, I had just assumed this entire time that all A* cards got the A*B* treatment at some point in the production run.

This means that I'll have to take another look at my bold logo cards since whenever I opened product and got them, I'd look at the first A* player and if it didnt have the A*B*, I wouldn't flip the rest over.

And thats another interesting find on the Hill, I'll update the list. Now I'm wondering if it affected all six sheets (Reardon, Osuna and Bergman don't seem to have this variation...).

Lots of great work Pat, I think a those of us who dig this strange set really appreciate this!

I have been doing some deep digging on the variations the past few weeks and here are some of my thoughts on them.

There seem to be 3 or 4 different groups that a particular variation can be placed in and I think that had to do with the printing stages that can be broken down into A-B-C or A-B-C-D.

What I mean by that is I think each printing was kind of like an assembly line. I really only collected baseball cards and a very small amount of football cards back then so I don't know the timeframe on the basketball and hockey that well.

I know topps printed a wide variety of cards but if I'm not mistaken the 4 sports were their biggest volume.

The 91 baseball printing probably started when they were in the middle to the end of either the 90 basketball or hockey printing and that's where I think the A printing of the 91 baseball started before moving to to the B and possibly C printing when the 90 basketball or hockey was finishing up. When the 91 football printing got in full swing that's when the C and or D period of the 91 baseball printing stage started.

I think that's where the variations are broken down into groups with the scarce variations printed in either the A or C/D stage and the common variations were printed in between.

The #21 Joe Morgan card is a good example of the different stages. there are 3 or 4 different variations I think I have one where the top of the 1 is clipped off but I couldn't locate it to see if it is the "tilted" or regular printed variation but either way I think it was just a period where there was some kind of obstruction for a short period during one of those printings.

The 87 hits was printed during the A stage and it is actually scarce enough that it might have shared that stage with the "tilted" 1 variation. I think the "tilted" variation was printed during part of the B stage and possibly the A stage also before the correction was made and the regular 187 was printed for the remainder of the printing.
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While looking for the clipped variation I found the higher 1 variation that I had forgot about. I had it with some other early variations so I think it might have been the first 187 variation.
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I also noticed that the tilted 1 variation has a bunch of lines in the inner pink areas that the other variations don't have. I will have to check and see if all of the tilted 1's have these.
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[ALR-bishop]

Amazing stuff, but I am sticking with just my 2 versions of Morgan

[Pat R]

Do the partial bold logos seem to be a fairly scarce print flaw to others or is it just what I'm experiencing with the 91 Topps that I have?

91 Topps partial bold logo.jpg

[Pat R]

I'm in the process of trying to come up with a printing timeline on the corrections that were made to some of the errors. I will post what I know when I get everything organized but here is some of what I have so far. Some of the early corrections were Chamberlain and Mattingly 101 hits while some of the latest corrections were Comstock Mariners and the Bradley #717 and McReynolds #105 checklists.

[jacksoncoupage]

Originally Posted by Pat R

I'm in the process of trying to come up with a printing timeline on the corrections that were made to some of the errors. I will post what I know when I get everything organized but here is some of what I have so far. Some of the early corrections were Chamberlain and Mattingly 101 hits while some of the latest corrections were Comstock Mariners and the Bradley #717 and McReynolds #105 checklists.

Hi Pat,

I have found over and over again that Mattingly was a later correction. I have opened boxes as recently as December 2023 that had corrected Comstocks and Mattinglys with 10 hits.

[Pat R]

Originally Posted by jacksoncoupage

Hi Pat,

I have found over and over again that Mattingly was a later correction. I have opened boxes as recently as December 2023 that had corrected Comstocks and Mattinglys with 10 hits.

Hi Dylan,

Maybe I'm wrong about the Mattingly. I have opened a few boxes that I documented and kept separated and I thought I had a couple of Mattingly 101 hits variations in an earlier box. I have everything documented but I haven't looked all of the information over thoroughly yet. I do know that I have 25-30 Comstocks and only one is the Mariner variation.

[jacksoncoupage]

Originally Posted by Pat R

Hi Dylan,

Maybe I'm wrong about the Mattingly. I have opened a few boxes that I documented and kept separated and I thought I had a couple of Mattingly 101 hits variations in an earlier box. I have everything documented but I haven't looked all of the information over thoroughly yet. I do know that I have 25-30 Comstocks and only one is the Mariner variation.

I no longer have documentation but what I remember from my last big 1991 Topps experiment in 2015-2016 was that Topps had two different packaging types

• Picture Cards product
• Bubble Gum Cards product

Certain variations were found in only one of those packaging types (Whiten, Drabek, Hoiles errors for example) while their common corrected versions could be found in both packaging types. Meanwhile, other variation-affected cards could be found in both types of packaging, also in both their error or corrected version depending on what time in the print run.