1962 "Bucks" aluminum proof plate

[steve B]

The aluminum ones are pieces of actual printing plates. Not really proofs. it's likely we see a bunch of them because someone saved a stack. Either from inside Topps, or at the recycling/scrap metal place they sent the plates to.

Steve B

[mmcgruff]

I wish I could describe it better for you guys. I have it kept in a pvc one pocket sheet along with the note from the seller. Like I said before, it is very flimsy, color is black or perhaps a charcoal color and along the bottom is grey.

[laughlinfan]

OK - I am probably showing my ignorance of the printing process, but if these were somehow used as printing plates, wouldn't the image be reversed? And if they were part of the actual printing process, I don't understand why some of them have a full to the edge picture, instead of showing the border/card design? Thanks for any info!

[steve B]

The process is a bit complicated, but in brief form...
The plate has areas that accept water or not
the plate is wet
Then oil based ink is rolled over it sticking only to the dry areas. Regular image
Then the plate prints to a rubber roller -reversed
Then the rubber roller prints to the paper.- regular

The plate will be slightly bigger than the object being printed. Small stuff is usually done in sheets, with sheet size depending on how many you need to print and what size press you've got. The shop I worked for had 3 sizes, one did roughly 8 1/2x 11, another I think 16x24, and a few that did 23x35.

Topps has/had huge presses, capable of printing two 132 card sheets at once. About 44 x 58. All the aluminum cards we see are cut down from larger plates. In the case of 1962s there's no border because the cards had the woodgrain border. Modern stuff often has no border as well. Some of the new "printing plate" cards aren't actually from plates- the real plate won't say "printing plate" anywhere in the card image

The aluminum is thin but can be very useful. When Aluminum prices are down shops will sometimes allow the plates to be taken for other uses. I used the little ones as dustpans when sweeping up. And took a few for a friend of mine to use to cover rust holes on his car. RELAX! we didn't print cards. I think his car was fixed with an MIT course catalog or somethinglike that.

I'f we'd printed cards I'd have the plates

Steve B

[laughlinfan]

Thanks for the explanation! I can now consider myself to be a bit more educated than when I woke up this morning!

Still wondering about the full to the edge pictures though - looks like for some of these no allocation was made for the border or card design. I pulled this pic from eBay to illustrate:

[steve B]

That's an interesting bit of plate! The one I have is a full card image border and all.

Topps did a lot of proofing that I find odd. The shop I worked for did nearly no proofing, the few I saw were essentially large photos taken directly from the mask (The full plate size negative used to make the plates - which is made from opaque paper or plastic with lots of smaller negatives taped to it. On some 81 fleer you can see the tape at the top or bottom of the picture)
But that was a job shop that didn't do much artwork. The stuff being done was usually supplied as finished original art by the customer.

Topps did paper proofs, acetate overlay proofs, cardboard proofs, and a whole lot of other stuff.

I'd guess this was a plate that printed the photos they chose either so they could see how it looked printed, or so they could design different borders on paper and view the pics through cutouts - or just paint the design directly onto the proof. Either way it's from early in the design process.

Steve B