34 Goudey variation 1/1?

[NiceDocter]

I bought this “white” card at a show from a dealers commons 20 or so years ago…. it just didn’t look right to me so got it for a dollar or about that. Is it a real missing yellow card or is it sun faded??? I would also say none of his other cards looked like that….. it was the only one…

[bnorth]

Originally Posted by NiceDocter

I bought this “white” card at a show from a dealers commons 20 or so years ago…. it just didn’t look right to me so got it for a dollar or about that. Is it a real missing yellow card or is it sun faded??? I would also say none of his other cards looked like that….. it was the only one…

That is a 1958 Topps and that year the yellow color almost fell off them. Seriously they are famously easy to fade the yellow of off.

[G1911]

Originally Posted by NiceDocter

I bought this “white” card at a show from a dealers commons 20 or so years ago…. it just didn’t look right to me so got it for a dollar or about that. Is it a real missing yellow card or is it sun faded??? I would also say none of his other cards looked like that….. it was the only one…

This one is full sun faded from extensive exposure.





Yellow to white and green to blue are probably the easiest to make. You can take a yellow card and remove the yellow pretty quickly with nothing but light. It's not too difficult to not effect the other colors, even by honest accidental fading that wasn't done by a person trying to make and sell a fake error.

I actually like these cards, even though its just damage 99% of the time you see a yellow-to-white. Still looks cool.

[whiteymet]

Originally Posted by NiceDocter

I bought this “white” card at a show from a dealers commons 20 or so years ago…. it just didn’t look right to me so got it for a dollar or about that. Is it a real missing yellow card or is it sun faded??? I would also say none of his other cards looked like that….. it was the only one…

Doesn't it make sense on Rocky's 58T Williams card that since the color at the bottom behind team name and position is different prove that yellow was never printed on the card?

I don't think sun fading would turn that from green to blue.

[bnorth]

Originally Posted by whiteymet

Doesn't it make sense on Rocky's 58T Williams card that since the color at the bottom behind team name and position is different prove that yellow was never printed on the card?

I don't think sun fading would turn that from green to blue.

Actually that is exactly what sun fading does. Just look at the never ending supply of Blue 1958 Hank Aaron cards one extremely dishonest seller has had for decades.

[frankbmd]

If it's a warm sunny summer, will there be a hoard of '34 Goudey's tanning at the beach?

[G1911]

Originally Posted by whiteymet

Doesn't it make sense on Rocky's 58T Williams card that since the color at the bottom behind team name and position is different prove that yellow was never printed on the card?

I don't think sun fading would turn that from green to blue.

Green is easily turned into blue, with nothing but light.

If too much light (or other factors beyond quantity), colors beyond yellow-to-white and green-to-blue get dulled. Attached is an example, the bottom of the card on top was covered with a book, and the rest of the card hit with a certain kind of light. We can see the image is dulled out and washed out, because I hit it with a lot of light for a longer time, to illustrate the effect.

One can easily create a version that does not dull the other colors but using more moderate light and/or different light sources. These can happen for non-nefarious reasons too, for example a card left on display and exposed to light of the right brightness range for long enough, but some scammers have been making cards like this for awhile to sell as 'errors'. These undulled or less dull cards are often incorrectly believed to be 'legitimate'.

Yellow to white, green to blue, and for tobacco cards red to orange are the easiest color changes to have happen through honest exposure or through nefarious means intending to defraud. All can be made pretty quickly at home. The most problematic of these are probably the 1969 Topps white letter Mantle's. There is a true printing variation, with his last name in yellow or in white, with white being rare. However, you can pretty easily just remove the yellow in that area and make one at home.


Glues can create much weirder combinations and color problems, which are also often passed off as legitimate printing errors, but really are not. A majority of color-based printing errors are not errors and did not leave the factory that way.