1954 Bowman counterfeit method?

[ElJayel]

Originally Posted by G1911

Yes, if a sheet was flipped then all the cards on that exact sheet would be printed together with an upside down wrong back. The 1954 Bowman sheet layouts are not fully known, but for example let's say that Don Larsen is the top left corner card of the sheet, row 1 column 1. To create a wrong back, if that sheet is then run through to print the reverses, the bottom right corner card will be the top of the sheet printed in that slot.

I am not quite sure of the press details in 1954, if a feeder machine automated flipping the sheet over or if a human worker sat there and did it over and over all day. Dave might know better and chime in. This happens throughout the entirety of cardboard history - I have an ~1860's CDV that has the front text printed upside down from the lithographers back, and you can still on rare occasion find them today in a fresh pack of Topps. It was even a somewhat frequently recurring issue with 2021 Topps Heritage High Number, as I recall.

All the Larsen wrong backs created like this would have a Seminick back, as the wrong back is dictated by being of whatever card is in the exact opposite position on the sheet. Wrong backs are, much less often, created in other ways. For example, a front sheet from a second series paired with a first series back sheet that was laying around the factory, often happening during pre-production testing.

1954 Bowman is not especially prone to this problem, but I have seen others. An exact card found this way, like a 1954 Larsen wrong back, is quite rare. You might look for an exact card with a wrong back and never find it in decades of searching.

Wow! Thank you so much for this detailed response. This is really interesting and now I'm glad I asked the question instead of just accepting I was duped.

So, I have looked online for any evidence of another 1954 Bowman Larsen wrong back. This basically means Google--which of course is not comprehensive. Would love to know if anyone here has seen or heard about another one of these out in the wild?

Thanks again to this great community!