short prints and double prints ?

MCMLVTopps · March 3, 2010 12:29AM

Pls explain to me why this happens and how are the players chosen by the manufacturer to create these short and double prints? Obviously done intentionally by the manufacturer, but I can't figure why they do it.

Thanks

bking · March 3, 2010 12:56AM

<< Pls explain to me why this happens and how are the players chosen by the manufacturer to create these short and double prints? Obviously done intentionally by the manufacturer, but I can't figure why they do it.

Thanks >>

I'm probably going to mess up some facts here, but it occurs because cards are printed on sheets of 132 (IIRC). Since no set ever has a multiple of 132 cards, some cards get doubled on sheets to make the math work out. Take my favorite current set (1970 Baseball) - series 1 & 2 are exactly 132 cards each, so no shorts or doubles. Series 3-7 are all less than 132, so double prints exist for many of the cards. the last 3 series are actually 87 cards each, so lots of double prints there.

I think the concept of short prints is misnamed, as they really don't print less of them "on purpose" ; they just print fewer sheets of the higher series, so the double prints tend to look like regular pops and the single prints tend to be short prints.

cards651 · March 3, 2010 1:38AM

This is a great topic and the initial response from bking explains it pretty well. I collect the 1969 set and I continue to be amazed at the short print issue. Certain Yankee (212 Tresh, 643 Cowan), Mets (127 Collins, 269 Weis), Tigers (231 Dobson, 256 Brown) and Cub (115-Hands, 347 Hundley) cards are very difficult. While these teams tend to be very popular, only certain cards from these teams are difficult. I have to believe Topps purposely selected cards from these teams to be the short prints in order to increase sales. I may be a bit cynical on this, however. What do you think?

jmoran19 · March 3, 2010 1:57AM

<< I'm probably going to mess up some facts here, but it occurs because cards are printed on sheets of 132 (IIRC). Since no set ever has a multiple of 132 cards, some cards get doubled on sheets to make the math work out. Take my favorite current set (1970 Baseball) - series 1 & 2 are exactly 132 cards each, so no shorts or doubles. Series 3-7 are all less than 132, so double prints exist for many of the cards. the last 3 series are actually 87 cards each, so lots of double prints there.

I think the concept of short prints is misnamed, as they really don't print less of them "on purpose" ; they just print fewer sheets of the higher series, so the double prints tend to look like regular pops and the single prints tend to be short prints. >>

Actually there are NO short prints in the last 3 series for the 1970 cards.

A true uncut sheet is 264 cards which then were cut in half for easier handling, these are the 132 card sheets that are mostly seen on Ebay, etc. Here's an example for 1971:

For the last 3 series of 1970, Topps printed the cards in blocks of 44 (44x3 = 132, times 6 = 264). Only one card per series was doubled printed and that would always be that series checklist as it was also printed with the preceeding series as a form of advertising. Here is the 6th series right half showing this style of printing, each card printed 3 times, the left half would then have 44 different cards printed 3 times as well:

Here is the left side bottom 6 rows, can't find the 132 card one but is the same layout as the above 1970 sheet:

This is the layout for generally any year that has a series of 87/88 cards although the way topps printed each 44 card block varies, John

bking · March 3, 2010 2:25AM

Cool; thanks for the clarification. Makes the 1970 numbers more understandable.

One day, I'd like to own either an uncut sheet or a quality repro just to frame and display.

celesterussell · March 3, 2010 5:11AM

Great Post, so much better than those INANE posts on the general community ,message board.

Just a point, what about the 1966 and 1967 set, there is no question that (forgetting that some cards are continually miscut) that they are printed in a lower quntity, for example, grant jackson, mel queesn , cardinals rookies, and in 1967 Donn C. and Jim Shellenback/r. willis card.

also I agree with you on the 1969 set, many mets and yankees are much tougher (kekich, Cox). Also if you notice there are many Mets that are tough cards in the 1970 set .

theczar · March 3, 2010 6:56AM

Great Post, so much better than those INANE posts on the general community ,message board.

Amen to that. This place is getting to be a place where people are selling the same cards in four or five forums (and half of the time others being critical of the pricing), a place where people share the inner most secrets of their lives searching for some sort of advice, prayers, police work or sympathy or a place where every topic from what kind of car you drive, beer you drink or should your wife be mad if you ask for a strip pole in your bed room.

You did mention the 1966 set. I would love to see some sheets from that set to see what items are truly SP's. There are cards from almost every series that seem to be SP. While you mentioned the difficult cards to find, there are a handful of high numbers such as Tony Martinez which are plentiful in high grades.

Unlike today where everyone seems to know everything about a set, there is so much lost/missing information from older sets that can be very interesting. Until the SMR published an article about the 1966 set I could never figure out why there was no Astros team card. Someone mentioned that after they changed the name from Colt .45s to Astros, they were sued by the makers of Astroturf over the use of the name Astros. When Houston built the Astrodome, complete with Astroturf, they renamed the team the Astros. But the makers of Astroturf claimed a copyright on the 'Astro' name and sued to prevent the team itself from using it. Topps had to follow the court injunction.

Also why were there no World Series cards in that set?

I apologize if this post annoys anyone. Perhaps PSA should add a new "OT" forum where people can bear their souls to a waiting public eager to be Dear Abby.

jmoran19 · March 3, 2010 7:06AM

Thanks!

The 3rd series for 1970 consists of 109 different cards, adding in the 4th series CL as noted above makes 110 cards.

Based off a really poor photo of half a 264 card sheet the layout is in 2 blocks of 5 rows with 2 of these rows repeated at the bottom. I have no idea how Topps decided which 2 rows would be DPed but they would always be adjoining rows, not random ones. Projecting this would mean:

66 different cards printed twice = 132
44 different cards printed 3 times = 132, these would be considered DP's

This is generally true for the first 3 series of 1969 and every other series that is 109/110 cards.

MCMLVTopps · March 3, 2010 9:52AM

Thanks bking and jmoran19.

Well done!! Great pics and nice explanation. Suddenly it kinda makes sense to me.

Al

mrpeanut39 · March 3, 2010 10:32AM

<< 

<< I'm probably going to mess up some facts here, but it occurs because cards are printed on sheets of 132 (IIRC). Since no set ever has a multiple of 132 cards, some cards get doubled on sheets to make the math work out. Take my favorite current set (1970 Baseball) - series 1 & 2 are exactly 132 cards each, so no shorts or doubles. Series 3-7 are all less than 132, so double prints exist for many of the cards. the last 3 series are actually 87 cards each, so lots of double prints there.

I think the concept of short prints is misnamed, as they really don't print less of them "on purpose" ; they just print fewer sheets of the higher series, so the double prints tend to look like regular pops and the single prints tend to be short prints. >>

Actually there are NO short prints in the last 3 series for the 1970 cards.

A true uncut sheet is 264 cards which then were cut in half for easier handling, these are the 132 card sheets that are mostly seen on Ebay, etc. Here's an example for 1971:

For the last 3 series of 1970, Topps printed the cards in blocks of 44 (44x3 = 132, times 6 = 264). Only one card per series was doubled printed and that would always be that series checklist as it was also printed with the preceeding series as a form of advertising. Here is the 6th series right half showing this style of printing, each card printed 3 times, the left half would then have 44 different cards printed 3 times as well:

Here is the left side bottom 6 rows, can't find the 132 card one but is the same layout as the above 1970 sheet:

This is the layout for generally any year that has a series of 87/88 cards although the way topps printed each 44 card block varies, John >>

Some really great info here. Thanks. Just to clarify on the checklists... So a series 5 sheet would have both a 5th series and a 6th series checklist. Correct?

jmoran19 · March 3, 2010 12:28PM

"Some really great info here. Thanks. Just to clarify on the checklists... So a series 5 sheet would have both a 5th series and a 6th series checklist. Correct?"

Yes that is correct, Topps wanted to tease you with the players printed in the next series.

This is also why so many checklist from the 60's and early 70's have varations, Topps would make a minor change to the checklist before the series was printed.

celesterussell · March 3, 2010 5:20PM

while we are on the subject of short prints, does anyone know how the sheets were printed, In that set, there are a ton of legit short prints. Looking back, I can remember as a kid buying so many packs and never even seeing at the the the Lee Maye card, the John Purdin card or the Qualls (amongst others).

Also, when the sheets were cut, how were they seperated so that the cards came out randomly in the packs. Obviously this had to be done without damaging the cards.

Does anybody know.

bking · March 3, 2010 11:14PM

<< while we are on the subject of short prints, does anyone know how the sheets were printed, In that set, there are a ton of legit short prints. Looking back, I can remember as a kid buying so many packs and never even seeing at the the the Lee Maye card, the John Purdin card or the Qualls (amongst others).

Also, when the sheets were cut, how were they seperated so that the cards came out randomly in the packs. Obviously this had to be done without damaging the cards.

Does anybody know. >>

I've seen similar cutting machines at work before, and they would cut the sheets into 'columns', then those columns would be rotated 90 degrees and cut again into individual cards. All of these would slide down into 'shaker' trays, that jog the cards around to mix them up. They are then shaken down into bins until they stacked right.

OR.. I'm full of it and my memory is wrong.

cards651 · March 4, 2010 8:33AM

Thanks to everyone for their input on this. Very helpful but I remain a little skeptical. The 66 count 'box' and the 44 count 'box' both make sense to me and the various pictures certainly prove this. However, we do not know what quantities the various sheets were printed in. If Topps printed 5 of the 66 box sheets for every one of the 44 box sheets, there would be 10 cards from the 66 'box' for every 2 of the 44 'box' sheets. I understand that a full sheet is actually 264 cards but a full sheet could contain 2 sheets of the 66 boxes, correct? I may be rambling a bit here. Hope it makes some sense. Thanks again for all of the comments so far.

jmoran19 · March 5, 2010 12:28AM

<< Thanks to everyone for their input on this. Very helpful but I remain a little skeptical. The 66 count 'box' and the 44 count 'box' both make sense to me and the various pictures certainly prove this. However, we do not know what quantities the various sheets were printed in. If Topps printed 5 of the 66 box sheets for every one of the 44 box sheets, there would be 10 cards from the 66 'box' for every 2 of the 44 'box' sheets. I understand that a full sheet is actually 264 cards but a full sheet could contain 2 sheets of the 66 boxes, correct? I may be rambling a bit here. Hope it makes some sense. Thanks again for all of the comments so far. >>

Yes theoretically Topps could have done that just like others have intentionally low printed or excluded a card or cards (goudey Lajoie etc) but every 264 card sheet I've seen from the 70's has included every card from that series printed logically. Have also seen 264 card sheets that included 2 different series but again they had a logical pattern, John.

cards651 · March 5, 2010 3:00AM

John - Thanks for the input. Below is an example that may help explain my thoughts.

I just did the following searches on eBay:
1. 1969 Topps -PSA 191 This returns 13 results for raw cards (not graded) of Lindy McDaniel from the Yankees.
2. 1969 Topps -PSA 221 This returns 1 result for a raw card (not graded) of Art Shamsky from the Mets.
3. 1969 Topps -PSA 193 This returns 23 results for raw cards (not graded) of Don Cardwell from the Mets.
4. 1969 Topps -PSA 130 This returns 45 results for raw cards (not graded) of Carl Yastrzemski from the Red Sox.
5. 1969 Topps -PSA 347 This returns 1 result for a raw card (not graded) of Randy Hundley from the Cubs.

I do these searches fairly regularly and these are pretty typical results. The differences seem to be too large to be explained by collectors desires. I just think it has to be primarily due to the quantities printed. Do you guys agree or am I missing something? - Kevin

jmoran19 · March 5, 2010 4:39AM

<< John - Thanks for the input. Below is an example that may help explain my thoughts.

I just did the following searches on eBay:
1. 1969 Topps -PSA 191 This returns 13 results for raw cards (not graded) of Lindy McDaniel from the Yankees.
2. 1969 Topps -PSA 221 This returns 1 result for a raw card (not graded) of Art Shamsky from the Mets.
3. 1969 Topps -PSA 193 This returns 23 results for raw cards (not graded) of Don Cardwell from the Mets.
4. 1969 Topps -PSA 130 This returns 45 results for raw cards (not graded) of Carl Yastrzemski from the Red Sox.
5. 1969 Topps -PSA 347 This returns 1 result for a raw card (not graded) of Randy Hundley from the Cubs.

I do these searches fairly regularly and these are pretty typical results. The differences seem to be too large to be explained by collectors desires. I just think it has to be primarily due to the quantities printed. Do you guys agree or am I missing something? - Kevin >>

Again anything is possible but looking at the cards you mentioned in the second series (only sheet I have a pic of for the cards you listed) Don Cardwell is a DP so he should show up more than the other common card, McDaniel.

Hall of famers (Yaz) bring in more money so people tend to list and grade these cards and not no-name players.

Here is half the sheet showing all the second series cards. DP's are in the bottom 2 rows. Please notice the 2 different checklists, one is #107, the 2nd series (gibson) CL and the other is #214, the 3rd series CL. Never seen the full 264 cards sheet for the 2nd series but I'm pretty positive both sides would be the same.

nearmint · March 5, 2010 6:08AM

I've found that a card's position on the sheet often affects its scarcity. One good example is the Jim Woodward card in the 1960 Fleer football set. 1960 Fleer is a 132-card set, so the set fit perfectly on a sheet, with no short prints or double prints. You hardly see the Woodward card up for auction at all, though, and when you do, it's way off-center or damaged. The Woodward card was in the bottom left corner of the sheet.

It could be that Woodward cards were damaged in production and discarded. Or maybe they were distributed, but most are so off-center or damaged that people don't bother to grade them or list them in auctions individually.

There are lots of examples in other sets, too. If you look at which cards are on the corners and edges of the sheets, then look them in the PSA pop report, you'll find that the corner and edge cards are often the toughest in the set.

Here's what an uncut 1960 Fleer football card sheet looks like.

cards651 · March 5, 2010 6:21AM

Great stuff, John. Thanks very much. That left column includes many notoriously difficult cards with respect to centering. McDaniel, Shannon, Nossek, Yastrzemski, Oyler, Pagan and Gibson are all very difficult in PSA 8. Also, the Dalrymple 'Phillies' variation (fourth from right on bottom) is double printed. Perhaps it's not as rare as advertised!

Dalrymple variation for $40 bucks!

Does anyone else happen to have any 1969 Series 2 sheets that they could share? I am still guessing that there are other versions of the 132 count sheet with different rows double printed.

Kevin

cards651 · March 5, 2010 6:27AM

nearmnint - thanks for the link to the 1960 Fleer football. Very interesting. Impressive web-site as well. Any chance you will add the 1976 Topps football set at some point? - Kevin

nearmint · March 5, 2010 6:36AM

Thanks, Kevin. Yes, someday I'll probably add the 1976 Topps set. It's just grunt work to do the data entry and scan the cards. I'm still working on scanning the monstrous 1972 Sunoco Stamps set, but it's really boring, so it's going slow. I still have to finish 1975 Topps, too.

jmoran19 · March 5, 2010 7:11AM

<< Also, the Dalrymple 'Phillies' variation (fourth from right on bottom) is double printed. Perhaps it's not as rare as advertised! >>

A informal search of ebay buy it nows shows 19 Phillies and 18 Orioles Dalrymples. I'm positive it was a double print no matter which team they used, it just depends when they changed the card in the print run as to which version was printed less in total.

cards651 · January 15, 2014 6:14AM

Just found an uncut 1960 Fleer Football sheet in the Goldin auction:
Real 1960 Fleer Uncut Sheet

Below is a link to the uncut sheet that had been put together:

Assumed Uncut 1960 Fleer Football sheet

From what I can tell, these really don't match that well. Perhaps I am missing something? More than one 132-card sheet? Any ideas?

Kevin M.

nearmint · January 15, 2014 6:44AM

They're the two halves of a 264-card sheet. If you compare the two halves, you can see that the top six rows on one are the bottom six rows on the other, and vice versa. That explains why the wrongbacks in the set have the backs they do. The wrongbacks resulted when the back of the whole 264-card sheet was printed upside-down.

First series (and possible second series) 1969 Topps sheets were the same way, it turns out: the top six rows on one half of the 264-card sheet were the bottom six on the other half. I need to add the second half-sheets to both my 1960 Fleer and 1969 Topps pages.

Thanks for pointing out that Goldin listing.

cards651 · January 15, 2014 6:55AM

Interesting. Thanks. It basically doubles the corner cards. I still don't quite understand the 264 card sheet, however. I have only seen 132 card sheets and 66 card sheets.

nearmint · January 15, 2014 7:41AM

Here's an example:

1966 Topps baseball 264-card sheet

cards651 · January 15, 2014 11:40AM

Thanks. I wish SMR would have some articles on the whole printing side of the hobby. I think it would be interesting. How about it SMR folks?

bishop · January 15, 2014 11:05PM

Double prints also result in many variant cards since the extra cards often have cropping or other differences. Three expensive examples are the 1952 high series double prints of Mantle, Robinson and Thompson. On those three cards, the stitching on the baseball on the back can run left or right. There are also front differences. On the Mantle the e in his auto is full or truncated, the star line above the box is wavy or straight ,and the black border is squared or has wings at the top. There is an by George Vrechek article on several variations in the 1963 set that all seem to have resulted from double printed cards. Also, virtually every Topps checklist from the 60s and early 70s has variant cropping differences

www.oldbaseball.com/1963_new_variations.pdf

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cards651 · January 16, 2014 12:24AM

I hear you on the checklist issue. My limited understanding of printing is that if you have two different 'plates', you will have two different cards. The variations may be very minor or they may be very obvious (some '69 baseball variations come to mind). I'm not suggesting that the variations be recognized as it would not make sense. I am suggesting that the short print/double print (triple print?) issue is not covered properly in the hobby press. Topps has been notoriously secretive about printing numbers and by extension, short print/double print. Would be nice for PSA to track down some former employees and try to do some digging. Think it would be interesting. The 'Topps Vault' is alive and well on eBay. This information is in that vault for sure.

Griffins · January 16, 2014 1:38AM

assuming all sheets are printed in the same quantity, it's easy to see what is a short print (as well as predict condition rarities) by examing uncut sheets.

cards651 · January 16, 2014 3:21AM

Yes and I'm not sure that assumption is valid. This is one that I'm having trouble with - 1976 Topps 66 card sheet

This 66 card sheet is from a 528 card set (1976 Topps Football). I have been told that there are four 132-card sheets that make up the 528 card set. So what explains this one? A few have argued that it is a 'proof'. Not sure what that means.

1976 Topps checklists are fairly difficult. Also, a number of the cards on the right portion are fairly difficult. The Colzie card (top right but second card in) tends to be miscut. Why would the second card from the right be miscut? One person told me Topps never used this. Not sure how they could know that or why Topps would produce something with no intent to use it.

I don't know the answers here. But the assumption that Topps printed 528 cards in equal quantity is probably a false assumption.

Anyway, thought it would be a good topic for a hobby publication.

short prints and double prints ?

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