Cracked open two boxes of '90 Topps today with my brother. Behold Blackless Chris Speier (#753):
Other, less obviously affected cards include #534 Louie Meadows (Name obscured), #651 Rafael Santana (white streak on top border) and #649 Dan Murphy (Topps logo and lower right border). I cannot find an image of an uncut green sheet of '90 Topps and if someone could provide one that would be greatly appreciated. I think if you were to view an uncut green sheet you would find all these cards next to each other.
All of the green sheet cards that I pulled were affected in the same way, in other words, they all came from the same sheet. To me this indicates that my packs came from production run before the error was discovered. Because as we have seen, that in other NNOF pulls from the same case, there were both normal and error cards, indicating that either A. different production runs were mixed together, or B. quality control had discovered the error and workers were actively removing affected cards from the production line.
It was a pretty messy print run, as I found some dinged up cards straight out of the packs. For instance, there were two blue sheet cards wrinkled in the exact same place, indicated that the uncut sheets were handled roughly ( or roughly stacked on top of each other, wrinkling the same card in the same place).
Also, I found very interesting that the #224 Delino DeShields had the diagonal red line running down the length of it, exactly like the red line the Rookiewax found in his pull. What kind of printing flaw could possibly link diagonal red lines with blackless areas? I would love for a printing expert to speculate on this. Again, if I had an uncut green sheet image, I could probably find DeShields neighbors above and below with similar red lines. I saved all my green sheet cards out of these boxes but could not find another one with an obvious red line.
Other perspectives? Seems as though these blackless problems were a recurring problem throughout the entire production process, as I sincerely doubt that these boxes from this case were from an early print run.
Now that I have Rafael Santana's card blown up in front of me on the screen, I see a red line right through the first "A" in "Rafael", extending vertically passing through the first "E" in "Yankees". So that red line went right through the print run.
Nice Christmas surprise there! During my pulls, I actually do recall similar faint slanted lines on other sheets. It may have been black lines on the blue sheet cards though. It was only a few cards, so it would take me quite a while to find them. I didn't notice any missing black at the time, but I will have to take another look if I find them.
A closer look at the green sheet cards revealed a very small border break in the Sandy Alomar and a Charlie Liebrandt with two border breaks. I also found normal versions of the Liebrandt and the Dan Murphy so correct print runs did get mixed in.
However what piqued my interest was when I finally found an uncut green sheet image on an Ebay completed sale. I made a quick Photoshop paint outline of the affected areas on the green sheet and then contrasted it with the NNOF blackless streak on the orange sheet. What I found was that similarly positioned cards are affected in a blackless line that mirrors the direction of the original orange sheet blackless streak, albeit with much less blackless area on the green sheet. The Chris Speier card is in the same position on the green sheet as the Kevin Tapani is on the orange sheet. The Charlie Liebrandt occupies the position of the Julio Franco All Star card. Louie Meadows and Marcus Lawton are in the same spot, and both have error streaks through the name plate area. Dan Murphy sits in the location north of the Frank Thomas, and Sandy Alomar is in Darrin Jackson's spot.
Images:
I am not a printing expert, but I believe these patterns are too closely located to be coincidental. This may mean that Ross' final theory involving the dirty rubber blanket - and NOT a damaged or dirty black printing plate - is most likely the cause of the blackless error streak. I believe that - as Ross posited - a dirty rubber blanket was cleaned with a solvent during the printing process and the solvent was not properly removed from the rubber blanket. This caused the ink to not adhere to the printing plate. The only way that this error could appear in a similar pattern on the green sheet is if the rubber blanket was reused to print the black ink onto the green sheet. This rubber blanket theory could also explain why there were similar looking diagonal lines on the both the NNOF error sheet and the green sheet errors I have just found.
Again, amateur opinion here, but from what I've read on the subject, I believe that the Frank Thomas NNOF could not have been created using a defective orange sheet printing plate if a similarly located pattern appeared on the green sheet. The green and orange sheet plates were created by chemically etching their own unique photonegatives onto the printing plates. There is very little chance of the same pattern being etched onto two different printing plates when they were derived from two different photonegatives. If there is a printing expert out there who has additional insight, please chime in.
Of note - I was not able to pull a Mike Smith, Mike Stanton or John Franco, three cards in the middle of the streak. I did pull a normal Steve Bedrosian, John Wetteland, and Daryl Boston.
I am not a printing expert, but I believe these patterns are too closely located to be coincidental. This may mean that Ross' final theory involving the dirty rubber blanket - and NOT a damaged or dirty black printing plate - is most likely the cause of the blackless error streak. I believe that - as Ross posited - a dirty rubber blanket was cleaned with a solvent during the printing process and the solvent was not properly removed from the rubber blanket. This caused the ink to not adhere to the printing plate. The only way that this error could appear in a similar pattern on the green sheet is if the rubber blanket was reused to print the black ink onto the green sheet. This rubber blanket theory could also explain why there were similar looking diagonal lines on the both the NNOF error sheet and the green sheet errors I have just found.
Again, amateur opinion here, but from what I've read on the subject, I believe that the Frank Thomas NNOF could not have been created using a defective orange sheet printing plate if a similarly located pattern appeared on the green sheet. The green and orange sheet plates were created by chemically etching their own unique photonegatives onto the printing plates. There is very little chance of the same pattern being etched onto two different printing plates when they were derived from two different photonegatives. If there is a printing expert out there who has additional insight, please chime in.
I appreciate the insight into the possible similarities between the orange and green sheet blackless areas. Though I find it interesting that folks are enamored with the idea of a dirty blanket or chemical spill having caused the error vs. a defective print plate having caused the variation. I realize that this is a considerably long thread but there is a clear preponderance of evidence that it was a defective plate. Especially when you consider that similar blackless type cards can be found in many Topps issues, good examples in 1989, 1985 Jerry Royster (cataloged No Topps Logo variation)- being a great example. The exact duplication of the error in quantity is not possible without the plate being the issue. The slight variations in the blackless 1990 cards are easily explained by the normal degradation of the plate as it wears through the printing process. Many different black plates had to be made and used by Topps in 1990 because they wore out.
The similarities between the green and orange plates above, which could also may merely be coincidental, could also easily point out simply that same problem that Topps had with producing the orange plate occurred with this green plate.
Always looking for 1993-1999 Baseball Finest Refractors and1994 Football Finest Refractors. saucywombat@hotmail.com
I thought Ross' "final" conclusion was that it was not a bad plate after all...but something temporary that happened during the printing process. He had posted that on his website I believe...but not here.
@RookieWax said:
I thought Ross' "final" conclusion was that it was not a bad plate after all...but something temporary that happened during the printing process. He had posted that on his website I believe...but not here.
I suppose we disagree on this point in that case
Always looking for 1993-1999 Baseball Finest Refractors and1994 Football Finest Refractors. saucywombat@hotmail.com
@RookieWax said:
I thought Ross' "final" conclusion was that it was not a bad plate after all...but something temporary that happened during the printing process. He had posted that on his website I believe...but not here.
I suppose we disagree on this point in that case
I'd like Ross to come on here and weigh in at some point, and I don't want to speak for him. But just going off his blog, when Joe mentions "something temporary" he is specifically talking about a dirty rubber blanket theory that I thought was the general consensus based on posts here and the blog. Link - http://www.bighurthof.com/1990-topps-variations
I went back through the green sheet cards and came across some very interesting finds. There is a blue stripe, perfectly identical to Joe's (RookieWax) orange sheet errors, running vertically on the same angle from Paul Coleman (at bottom of green sheet) to Harold Baines at the top of the green sheet. Some of the examples in the middle have a very faded blue line that is not very visible on my scanner so I'll just include the Coleman and Baines below (edit - Baines error is not quite visible unless image blown up):
This would **seem to ** suggest that my errors are related to the NNOF errors. Additionally, I found a very interesting Jim Leyland error, similar to the Jeff King and exactly like Saucywombat's John Wathan error. I would point out, and I think that Saucywombat (what is your first name? haha) would agree, that he had a good chunk of orange error sheet cards among his collection so it's not out of the realm of possibility that the John Wathan and the Jim Leyland error are from related print runs (i.e. more NNOF connections).
Opened up another box, more blackless green sheet errors. Pulled copies of all the errors I got in the first box besides the Leyland. All orange sheet cards normal, and they were thoroughly scrutinized. I think I found the end of the streak. #39 Curt Ford and #686 Carmelo Martinez, neighbors of the Chris Speier that I first pulled, showed good blackless chunks in the lower right and left borders. Unfortunately both the Curt Ford and and Carmelo Martinez cards got clipped by something in the printing process and tore up the left side of the card border. A lot of cards from both the blue and green sheets were clipped in this manner. Here are the cards as they would appear on an uncut sheet:
I believe I have one more box to open that contains green sheet errors. The other boxes I got from the seller were from a different case and so far contain no errors.
I have to say that I do not find it to be a coincidence that these error sheets featured heavily scuffed cards, in some cases (such as the Curt Ford), in the exact location as the blackless area. While these errors are in nearly the exact location on the printing sheet as the NNOF error streak, I have yet to find an orange sheet error or any of the "earmarks" of an orange sheet error that RookieWax found, so at this point, while it may be possibly that they were created around the same time as the NNOF error, I do not think they are directly related.
I do think that the scuffs on these cards could represent new evidence as to the cause of the blackless errors and should be brought into consideration when discussing different theories. I'd love to hear from some of the regular commentators on this thread but they all seem to have vanished from the boards or have little interest in these new discoveries. And @saucywombat I hope I didn't turn you off of this thread with the way I presented my opinions. I've researched the offset lithography process quite a bit more in the last few weeks and I really don't feel as strongly one way or the other about the cause of these errors, be it rubber blanket or printing plate or obstruction... It has been fun uncovering more evidence and integrating that into this thread but I really do need others' help to reach any conclusions on this, and I would still love to hear more detail about why you think it is a printing press error.
Also of note, I found some blue sheet cards with scuffs exactly like the ones you see on the Carmelo Martinez and the Curt Ford.
Finally, there is still one more green sheet error box to open that I am saving for my brother. I am also working on something else that I have to keep under wraps for the time being.
A quote from Ross on page 10 which appears to be what saucy was getting at in the first place:
"This is how it has been explained to me:
The amount of repetition that occurred to create the NNOF Thomas in mass quantity can hypothetically only be created by a faulty plate. If the obstruction were on the blanket, black ink from the plate would still transfer to a solid obstruction and the ink would then transfer to the sheet. If a chemical obstruction appeared on the blanket, you would see pooling of ink around the perimeter of the obstruction and possibly randomly through the obstruction itself. If the obstruction were directly on the sheet, only one run would be affected.
Beyond that, the shape of the error is organic, not fixed as would be expected by a physical obstruction. I do now think they were potentially created by the same plate, and if not the same plate, plates that were side by side in production."
Should be noted that Ross' blog draws a different conclusion.
It was a damaged blanket no doubt. The black boarder around the name and the Topps logo are partly missing. The printer probably did not notice until several sheets were ran then stopped to change the blanket.
And this diagram showing the path of the printing material (cardstock for the purpose of our discussion) through the 4 different CMYK printing plates:
The video likely depicts far more technologically advanced printing apparatus than was used in '89/90 but I think it is still accurate of the process.
Now, relevant to the blanket vs. printing plate/bad neg. discussion is this thread I found on Net54 forums. Steve Birmingham posts regarding the Thomas NNOF:
"The 90 Thomas and the Wiggins/Flanagan pair shown are entirely unrelated errors.
The Wiggins/Flanagan is from water or solvent dripping onto the plate or blanket in the press. It's a fairly common error for the era, but finding a matched pair is very cool. It's also the sort of error that is probably unique or nearly so.
The Thomas is from some debris, probably tape blocking some of the black plate from being exposed when it was being made. A printing error, but a recurring one. Probably uncommon since the plate would have been replaced pretty quickly. I'd call it a variation, since it's the result of a different plate. Others might not because of the unintentional nature of the error."
"It's possible that it recurred over a few sheets, but no more than a few.
When the operator adds water sometimes it drips onto either the plate or the offset blanket. If it drips on the plate it would probably only be on one sheet since the plate is wet and inked each rotation, and the pressure should squeeze out enough water to keep it to one sheet. I can see water getting on the rubber blanket maybe lasting a couple rotations under the right conditions.
If it was solvent, which is used occasionally to remove ink buildup on the rollers, then it might last a bit longer on the blanket. But again probably only one or two turns on the plate since the water would float it off and the pressure would push it out.
I do have one card showing where the ink floated on a very overwatered plate. Pretty odd effect.
Steve B"
And a response to a poster's comment later:
" I didn't explain that very well.
The group of 90T related to the Thomas are from something causing the plate to be made incorrectly.
The plates are made from a set of large negatives called the mask. It's usually a bunch of negatives taped to an opaque paper or plastic sheet. The plate is exposed much like a photograph would be, then developed. If something like a hunk of tape or strip of paper was between the mask and the plate that part wouldn't get exposed and that portion of that color wouldn't print.
I think the 90T and the Seaver/Clemens were both caused that way. The 90T is the most extreme example I've seen. Very sloppy work by the platemaker.
Other cards missing areas of color may be similar, but it's just one way of having missing color in an area.
Incorrect original
Incorrect mask
Bad plate
Solvent/water drips
Debris in the press.
Too much wetting of the plate
Underinking
Damaged/stained paper stock
Misfeed of a sheet
Partial print of the sheet - Impression cylinder not engaged for the whole rotation
Sheet not fed through at all
I think that's it, there could be others I missed.
And some of those have related errors.
Debris in the press can sometimes wrap around the plate, get inked and print what looks like faded solid color.
If there's too little water instead of too little the entire plate can get inked to varying degrees and will also print a light solid layer.
All are pretty cool, but the only one I'd call a variation is the incorrectly made plate.
To summarize, it sounds like Steve B - who seems to have some printing experience - came to the conclusion that the cause of the NNOF was likely a physical object (tape or the like) that blocked the negative from properly exposing onto the black plate during platemaking process. This would result in the error being reproduced exactly the same way for a series of press runs. At this time the only thing linking my green sheet errors to the NNOF errors is the diagonal blue lines running up and down the sheet. The blackless areas in similar locations on the printing sheets could be a coincidence (in other words, the same platemaking error happening twice) and linking them together might have been wishful thinking on my part. While they do have the same physical characteristics (i.e., caused by the same phenomenon), they have different overall shapes, indicating two separate events.
At this point, unless I find anything else linking my findings to the NNOF, I am going to take the discussion of green sheet errors elsewhere as I don't want to distract the conversation away from the purpose of the thread - Ross' (BoB) saucywombat, Rookiewax and others' discoveries of the NNOF and related errors. Thanks to all who were patient with my ramblings on the subject. West
Well first let me say that the four color printing process, a variation of gravure printing, that produces baseball cards, most commercial cardboard packaging and newspaper, is a process that an immense amount of variables play in to. A quick web search will reveal a great deal of scholarly (include complex physics) energy is devoted to perfecting the process. Think fluid dynamics, capillary actions, heat, pressure, static electricity, viscosity, paper quality, ideal chemical properties, speed of rollers, thickness or rollers, tension between rollers, etc.
It defies a short explanation so if anyone is so inclined, check out printwiki.org/Gravure
Pretty interesting
Gravure printing involves at its heart the engraving of an image onto a printing plate. in the mid-19th century processes were developed to allow for the chemical etching of photographic images into metal. This allowed for the first time for photographic images to be accurately reproduced through press printing (as it was not possible to perfectly reproduce by hand on to the plate). Interestingly today it is possible to physically etch an image with digital technology which can eliminate the chemical process but not possible in 1990.
So at some point Topps photographed and developed the the "F" plate black image. This is when the most likely error occurred that produced the blackless area on the F sheet.
Undeveloped patches are a known problem in developing photographic prints, which would be loosely defined as an area of the negative that has been unaffected by processing solutions. This may have gone unnoticed and the image transferred to the plate.
Also a possibility is that a chemical process is used to etch the photographic negative into the plate. So a perfectly good image can be distorted if the chemical etching process does not go well. I think this is probably what we are looking at with the "F" plate. In this example of the process you can easily see how bubbling or streaking of the sort present on the "F" sheet are easily made during the application of the image to the roller plate. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uwPVKJmElbU
The image in the video is known as a "resist". Problems that occur in rotogravure printing can include the resist not being properly applied. The video above shows a simplified process (usually the resist stays adhered longer to the plate for the image to be properly transferred). The resist usually requires a more involved process for stripping it away from the plate. Sometimes the resist (or parts there of) remain adhered to the plate. This is a very plausible explanation for the errors. To me it seems clear from the type of blackless areas produced and the quantity in which they were produced point clearly to an issue created by the production of the photographic image that produced the resist or its application or removal from the black "F" plate.
This is my position. I always appreciate interest in this matter but it would be nice if this thread was powered by people excitedly finding more of the blackless errors discovered in this thread. We need a cable show to pick up this "Valuable" error and get people looking for them (BTW - whatever happened to History Detectives?). The only press has been the one Beckett blurb more than 5 years ago. Not sure that our very academic discourse in gravure printing will help this cause.
Always looking for 1993-1999 Baseball Finest Refractors and1994 Football Finest Refractors. saucywombat@hotmail.com
So having Frank scribble in the name box apparently adds $28,800 of value. Yeah...I'm set. Figured someone would do this someday. I always liked this card better unsigned.
Brief update - I opened two more boxes that came from the same case I got the earlier green sheet errors. I did not pull a single green sheet error and all orange sheet cards were normal.
Next up is a half of a supermarket case. I will probably open these cards over the course of the next two weeks, unless I stumble on something exciting...
I'd like to add another quote from Steve B over on the Net54 boards. I PM'd him on that site and he responded with some valuable information on printing which I find pertinent to this discussion. What follows is Steve's writing:
"Those green sheet errors are interesting. The location isn't exactly the location of the orange sheet ones, but is really similar. I'll have to think a bit about whether I think they're related technically, or just coincidentally. Right now I'm leaning towards them being related technically. Perhaps if the orange sheet was in fact tape they may have done a poor job of cleaning off the adhesive, leaving some in almost the same spot but a bit higher and to the left. Some plate exposure frames have extra room, so it might just be where the plate was located under the glass.
A couple of the more major ones are consistent enough to be a bad plate, the minor ones, especially the one with the frame break at the right may just be transient problems that happened along with the bad plate. Or, if you're lucky, someone noticed the massive frame break and fixed it by scratching the missing border into the black plate. I might be able to tell, but I'd have to see a high res scan -something around 600+dpi. Flaws repaired like that are really unusual on baseball cards. None come to mind right off. The 81 fleer pointing fingers may have been scratched in as a joke.
The other cards shown, are also interesting, but somewhat unrelated.
The ones with extra yellow on the backs are fairly straightforward overinking. Not at all uncommon, and a somewhat transient error. Overinking sticks around until you limit the ink supply and a few rotations after too.
The thin lines, both the red and the blue are either plate scratches or drag marks. A bit of debris could have scratched the plate for that color, and once scratched the line of the scratch would print. It's possible to fix it in unprinted areas like the border of a card with a white border. But it's not always caught, and often being later in the use of the plate it isn't usually fixed. I don't think I have or have seen an example of a repaired one.
Many presses use a strip of tinsel like material to help reduce static electricity buildup. Conditions need to be right for the buildup, and it's more of an issue on higher speed presses. If the ink is wet enough the anti static strip can drag through the ink and carry some of it across the surface of the sheet as it passes. Drag marks can be consistent, but usually aren't. So they'll be differing thicknesses and often not always in the same spot.
Plate scratches on blue and red would be unrelated to flaws on the black plate, with the exception that the plates would be used at about the same time.
I'm not sure if Topps was using presses that printed more than one color at a time, or if they were sheet fed or web fed web meaning running a continuous roll of paper/cardstock instead of individual sheets. Considering the production levels I'd have to think they were likely done on a 5-6 color web fed press. (For the basic CMYK plus clearcoat and maybe something else like solid colors in a few spots instead of CMYK halftones. ) If that's correct, the plates would have been used together, and probably changed as a set. So the scratches will always coincide with the flawed black plates, except for cards done early in the print run before the scratches happened.
The other theories-
Damaged blanket - possible but unlikely. The extent of the orange sheet missing area would mean extensive damage to the blanket. Either from a serious bit of debris getting into the press -like a chunk of wood serious- that ripped a lot of surface off the blanket. Possible since the blanket is usually a rubber like substance backed with cloth.
Or the rubber started coming apart - less likely since there aren't any cards showing the damage as progressive.
Either way it would have been a pretty noticeable event. In the first case, the blanket would have been changed immediately or nearly so. In the latter it should have been caught before taking out such a large area of the blanket surface. There's just too many of the cards out there for either to make any sense.
Solvent etc.
Pretty much already covered. Solvent spills don't look like that (Like 99.9% sure, but outliers happen) And they're very transient events.
The mechanical damage you mention is almost certainly the result of poor handling in between the press and the cutting. I have a stack of I think 3 of the same card with extensive damage at the upper right that happened before cutting, and they cards were still stacked when cut so they stayed together. Amazingly they went into either a pack or vending box together got unwrapped and ended up in a dealers inventory still stacked and slightly stuck together."
Got some scans done up at high resolution. Newest additions, after 5 years of searching:
Upon receiving the cards, I noticed immediately that the Acker and Hart had very unusual metallic colored scratches. Upon close inspection with a loupe, I observed that the scratches dragged black ink and deposited it at the end of the scratch. You can see this very clearly with the Acker closeups I posted above. This tells me that the scratches occurred on the (NNOF error producing) black color press. After searching through some of the other cards that I acquired along with the Acker and Hart, I was able to find the scratches on #281 Kevin Bass and #314 Donald Harris. The Bass even appears to have a silvery piece of cardstock embedded into the card.
Bass scan:
Piece of cardstock or other material embedded in Bass card:
Harris scan:
Upon consulting with a couple people familiar with printing, including Steve B on Net54, the consensus is generally that these scratches, while interesting, are unrelated to the cause of the blackless errors. They could be caused by anti-static material on the presses getting into the press.
The likely cause of the blackless NNOF errors remains, from what I have been told based on the evidence, a faulty printing plate. Not any physical obstruction in the press but a physical obstruction that blocked the negative from being properly exposed to the printing plate. Anyhow, very happy with the additions considering the enormous amount of persistence and legwork that was required to bring them in.
I personally think a dirty blanket is a possible explanation for the similarity in the issue between the green sheet and orange sheet; some solvent on a blanket used for more than one press preventing ink transfer in both instances.
I would think we could speak to someone who actually worked on developing and printing baseball cards (during the time this technology was used) to show them all the evidence and hear what they have to say. It shouldn't be that hard. However, Topps is proving to be an incredibly secretive company. I can only assume it stems from getting sued by Fleer over anti-trust issues. They had to protect trade secrets and the only way to do that was to keep information from getting out. Any other guesses? Also, we're now 28 years from the creation of the error and it's likely that some former employees have passed away.
I've also scoured Youtube in an effort to get a better grasp of the offset lithography process, but those videos obviously don't have anything about troubleshooting in them. Definitely interested in any other relevant theories, and we can't realistically rule anything out without talking to the guys who made the plates and ran the presses back then.
edited to add -
I would love for the green sheet errors to be related to the NNOF sheet, either because of a improperly exposed printing plate, a shared rubber blanket or other as yet unknown reason. They do share three similarities that I believe are not coincidental: the relative location on the printing sheet (The Speier error occupies the Tapani location), the blackless areas and both blue and red diagonal scratches running vertically down the sheet.
Is this the “progressive NNOF” that we once wondered exists? I have a strong inclination that this is actually a legit card and not a fake due to the slight blackless location in the ‘T’ of “White Sox” that is consistent with all legitimate NNOFs.
You can also see in the closeup the slightly faded blackless area around Frank’s stirrup that is consistent with other NNOFs. My mind is blown. 28 years after the fact. Just wow. I gotta talk to some printers.
I think the card is very unique but without an authentication from one of the major three graders, I don’t see it topping 1/4 of the price ($2500). I would have a hard time paying even that knowing that none of the major companies will slab it.
Still a very interesting and unique card and possibly important piece of the puzzle.
Personally - and as of now have yet to have input from someone with printing experience - I think it was the result of another improperly exposed plate where the negative was blocked by the same piece of tape/adhesive that caused the NNOF. A close look at the card shows that the contrast of the image is higher - and thus darker - than a typical NNOF. Is it possible that whatever blocked the negative was slightly transparent, and the black plate that created this error was simply exposed for a bit longer than the other NNOF plate? A longer exposure could allow light through an obstruction that was slightly transparent and thus create this error with a faded name.
This opens up some more questions. Why is this a one-off? If this error - shall we call it FNOF (faded name on front)? #414C? - was created by another improperly exposed black printing plate, why didn't more surface? A possible theory is that the plate that created this card went into production right as they were catching this error, and that quality control caught the majority of the error sheets printed. Even if say 10 or 15 examples like this got out, they may have gotten lost or chucked in the early period when no one knew about the error or its value.
Waiting to hear from Steve B who has helped me in the past on printing questions, but I wonder if this variation - if legit - would lend more credence to Ross’s dirty rubber blanket theory. In order for this error to be caused by faulty printing plates, are we not now talking three distinct error plates? The partial NNOF that Joe discovered, the faded NNOF, and the true NNOF. Unless there are some inking conditions I am unaware of that could produce this card in a “one-off” variation from the actual NNOF plate. That cannot be ruled out either without input from someone who is experienced in offset lithography.
@han_soto said:
Before wasting too much time, I would seriously question the authenticity of this card.
I have seen a tattoo removal laser gun remove the black ink from the yellow pages with similar fading results. After all, it takes numerous sessions to fully remove a tattoo and any removal tech will verify that black ink is the easiest to remove. The hardest, you may ask? Blue and yellow.
And any good scam artist would target the other tell-tale areas for authenticity.
BTW: of course it could be easier to perhaps add a slight “Frank Thomas” as well. IDK, im just highly skeptical of just about anything open to scamming.
I thought about that too. But if you were trying to fake a NNOF, wouldn't you fake a NNOF? Doesn't it seem like a whole lot of work to make up a partial NNOF, come up with some backstory, sub it to major graders, and then try to convince a bunch of obscure error collectors it's worth $10,000? I'd just fake a 10 NNOFs, put them up for $500-$1500 and sell it to any one of the suckers who regularly bid on those items.
I agree though about being careful (finances wise) and we absolutely should be skeptical about it's authenticity. Even if real it's only worth what some nerd error collector will pay for it, and my funds are limited. Hard to say what a healthy price would be if you buying knowing you can't slab it, and then when you go to sell it you know everyone will be asking the same questions you are right now. $10,000 is completely crazy at this point, it would only fetch a fraction of that in a true auction. Definitely not the first time I've seen stupid prices on NNOF related stuff.
Also I don't see any way for someone to be "in the know" enough to fake the bit of black ink loss around the "T" in "White Sox". I've always noticed that distinguishing marker on authentic NNOFs and have always recognized its absence on fakes. Here it is on the PSA 10 Dmitri Young NNOF below:
This version - I'll call it FNOF for now - has a larger blackless spot by the "T" in White Sox that is very interesting, and it also has a bit of black ink loss above Frank's eye as well.
Additionally, on the FNOF, it has the dark line through the yellow border below where the F should be in Frank's name. Here it is next to an authentic NNOF:
Hard to fake all these things in hopes of unknown profits for a card you can't slab that there may not be a large market for.
Agreed - exercise extreme caution if actually thinking of bidding. I am more interested in this card as a potential piece of evidence than as an investment. I see good fakes go for anywhere from $75-$1000, and that is probably the range in which this card should be valued.
@West22 said:
Agreed - exercise extreme caution if actually thinking of bidding. I am more interested in this card as a potential piece of evidence than as an investment. I see good fakes go for anywhere from $75-$1000, and that is probably the range in which this card should be valued.
Yep. Just like all the ‘52 Mantles and Wagners that are “found” in grandma’s attic.
“I know this card is real and worth $50k and have heard of PSA but I need money now so instead of getting it graded, I am just going to list it as a reprint and leave $49,300 on the table” and the guy still sells a $2 piece of cardboard for $700.
This person obviously knows the collectible lore of a this card with his asking price and the fact that this (FNOF) would be an astonishing addition to its legend. It literally makes zero sense for him not to get it graded. And if deemed authentic, considering its condition and rarity, I think this card could easily fetch well over $10k.
Well according to the listing he has tried, although the PSA label shown in the picture proves nothing. If submitted I believe they would not grade the variation because it is not recognized in SCD. There have been multiple discussions about what errors PSA and BGS will grade and it is a source of frustration for many who collect oddities.
I prefer not to assume malicious intent before hearing the seller's side of the story. Easy for me to say as I am not considering purchase. Honestly though, as someone who has reviewed hundreds of authentic and fake NNOF and owns many of the other blackless variations, the card appears to be real.
A summary of my talk with a former Topps employee:
According to him Topps did NOT have printing capabilities at Duryea in 1990. They subcontracted out to other printers and had a company representative doing quality control at the printing house. The uncut sheets were then sent to Duryea to be cut up and assembled into packs, boxes and cases before being shipped out to retailers.
Additionally, despite rumors to the contrary, this person did not believe that the NNOF was a "first run" printing error. His reasoning was that there was meticulous attention to detail for the first print run and more than a few people had to sign off on the first proofs. He believes that the error occurred sometime later in the production cycle as a result of some obstruction in the printing press. I didn't get into the finer details of the theory of the error causation (obstruction in the press vs. obstruction on the negative during plate exposure) as he was not directly involved in platemaking and printing.
He estimated that quality control at the printers pulled a sheet once every 1000 sheets to check for errors. This may explain how 500-1000 NNOFs slipped out into packs.
He did not remember the error itself which is not unusual considering the massive amount of production occurring. 1990 was probably one of the peak years in terms of total base set production run. Also, this person was employed at Duryea and the error would have been caught at wherever printing was occurring.
The conversation was illuminating and it was quite interesting to speak to someone who was on the inside back then. This person gave me permission to share this information but otherwise wishes to remain anonymous and enjoy retirement and I will respect his wishes and not share any other details regarding him or his employment.
@craig44 said:
Remarkable. Another piece of the puzzle perhaps?
To refresh your memory, this was the Thomas error that @RookieWax found in his error case before going on to pull 4 NNOF Thomas cards and the entire blackless run. I found this Thomas in the LAST PACK that was at the bottom of one of two retail wax boxes I bought. Here are several other examples of the card -
Joe's pull -
One I found on Ebay two years ago -
I've said this before on this thread but based on what I have heard from people with printing experience and from what the Topps employee told me about the production process, I believe this card came immediately after the NNOF error. Someone at the press found the bad black plate and had another plate worked up but didn't get some residual adhesive off the negative that had blocked the first NNOF exposure. The ran off another 500-1000 or so sheets but then found the Thomas and Lawton partial blackless errors and fixed it for good.
Lawton partial blackless vs. blackless:
Obviously I attempted to get more wax boxes from this source but this is all they had. I think it's very possible that there were some blackless errors among the other boxes in that particular case but they are long gone.
Here are two more I found ---- sorry the scanner didn't work, I can correct in another scan at work ...... offer if you want em'
Buying: Topps White Out (silver) letters Alex Gordon 80 Topps Greg Pryor “No Name" 90 ProSet Dexter Manley error 90 Topps Jeff King Yellow back 1958 Topps Pancho Herrera (no“a”) 81 Topps Art Howe (black smear above hat) 91 D A. Hawkins BC-12 “Pitcher”
Comments
1000 posts on the greatest thread ever on CU
George Brett, Roger Clemens and Tommy Brady.
Cracked open two boxes of '90 Topps today with my brother. Behold Blackless Chris Speier (#753):
Other, less obviously affected cards include #534 Louie Meadows (Name obscured), #651 Rafael Santana (white streak on top border) and #649 Dan Murphy (Topps logo and lower right border). I cannot find an image of an uncut green sheet of '90 Topps and if someone could provide one that would be greatly appreciated. I think if you were to view an uncut green sheet you would find all these cards next to each other.
All of the green sheet cards that I pulled were affected in the same way, in other words, they all came from the same sheet. To me this indicates that my packs came from production run before the error was discovered. Because as we have seen, that in other NNOF pulls from the same case, there were both normal and error cards, indicating that either A. different production runs were mixed together, or B. quality control had discovered the error and workers were actively removing affected cards from the production line.
It was a pretty messy print run, as I found some dinged up cards straight out of the packs. For instance, there were two blue sheet cards wrinkled in the exact same place, indicated that the uncut sheets were handled roughly ( or roughly stacked on top of each other, wrinkling the same card in the same place).
Also, I found very interesting that the #224 Delino DeShields had the diagonal red line running down the length of it, exactly like the red line the Rookiewax found in his pull. What kind of printing flaw could possibly link diagonal red lines with blackless areas? I would love for a printing expert to speculate on this. Again, if I had an uncut green sheet image, I could probably find DeShields neighbors above and below with similar red lines. I saved all my green sheet cards out of these boxes but could not find another one with an obvious red line.
Other perspectives? Seems as though these blackless problems were a recurring problem throughout the entire production process, as I sincerely doubt that these boxes from this case were from an early print run.
Now that I have Rafael Santana's card blown up in front of me on the screen, I see a red line right through the first "A" in "Rafael", extending vertically passing through the first "E" in "Yankees". So that red line went right through the print run.
Nice Christmas surprise there! During my pulls, I actually do recall similar faint slanted lines on other sheets. It may have been black lines on the blue sheet cards though. It was only a few cards, so it would take me quite a while to find them. I didn't notice any missing black at the time, but I will have to take another look if I find them.
A closer look at the green sheet cards revealed a very small border break in the Sandy Alomar and a Charlie Liebrandt with two border breaks. I also found normal versions of the Liebrandt and the Dan Murphy so correct print runs did get mixed in.
However what piqued my interest was when I finally found an uncut green sheet image on an Ebay completed sale. I made a quick Photoshop paint outline of the affected areas on the green sheet and then contrasted it with the NNOF blackless streak on the orange sheet. What I found was that similarly positioned cards are affected in a blackless line that mirrors the direction of the original orange sheet blackless streak, albeit with much less blackless area on the green sheet. The Chris Speier card is in the same position on the green sheet as the Kevin Tapani is on the orange sheet. The Charlie Liebrandt occupies the position of the Julio Franco All Star card. Louie Meadows and Marcus Lawton are in the same spot, and both have error streaks through the name plate area. Dan Murphy sits in the location north of the Frank Thomas, and Sandy Alomar is in Darrin Jackson's spot.
Images:
I am not a printing expert, but I believe these patterns are too closely located to be coincidental. This may mean that Ross' final theory involving the dirty rubber blanket - and NOT a damaged or dirty black printing plate - is most likely the cause of the blackless error streak. I believe that - as Ross posited - a dirty rubber blanket was cleaned with a solvent during the printing process and the solvent was not properly removed from the rubber blanket. This caused the ink to not adhere to the printing plate. The only way that this error could appear in a similar pattern on the green sheet is if the rubber blanket was reused to print the black ink onto the green sheet. This rubber blanket theory could also explain why there were similar looking diagonal lines on the both the NNOF error sheet and the green sheet errors I have just found.
Again, amateur opinion here, but from what I've read on the subject, I believe that the Frank Thomas NNOF could not have been created using a defective orange sheet printing plate if a similarly located pattern appeared on the green sheet. The green and orange sheet plates were created by chemically etching their own unique photonegatives onto the printing plates. There is very little chance of the same pattern being etched onto two different printing plates when they were derived from two different photonegatives. If there is a printing expert out there who has additional insight, please chime in.
Of note - I was not able to pull a Mike Smith, Mike Stanton or John Franco, three cards in the middle of the streak. I did pull a normal Steve Bedrosian, John Wetteland, and Daryl Boston.
I appreciate the insight into the possible similarities between the orange and green sheet blackless areas. Though I find it interesting that folks are enamored with the idea of a dirty blanket or chemical spill having caused the error vs. a defective print plate having caused the variation. I realize that this is a considerably long thread but there is a clear preponderance of evidence that it was a defective plate. Especially when you consider that similar blackless type cards can be found in many Topps issues, good examples in 1989, 1985 Jerry Royster (cataloged No Topps Logo variation)- being a great example. The exact duplication of the error in quantity is not possible without the plate being the issue. The slight variations in the blackless 1990 cards are easily explained by the normal degradation of the plate as it wears through the printing process. Many different black plates had to be made and used by Topps in 1990 because they wore out.
The similarities between the green and orange plates above, which could also may merely be coincidental, could also easily point out simply that same problem that Topps had with producing the orange plate occurred with this green plate.
saucywombat@hotmail.com
I thought Ross' "final" conclusion was that it was not a bad plate after all...but something temporary that happened during the printing process. He had posted that on his website I believe...but not here.
That is some great detective work West22. To make a discovery 26 years after the fact is pretty cool.
I suppose we disagree on this point in that case
saucywombat@hotmail.com
I'd like Ross to come on here and weigh in at some point, and I don't want to speak for him. But just going off his blog, when Joe mentions "something temporary" he is specifically talking about a dirty rubber blanket theory that I thought was the general consensus based on posts here and the blog. Link - http://www.bighurthof.com/1990-topps-variations
I went back through the green sheet cards and came across some very interesting finds. There is a blue stripe, perfectly identical to Joe's (RookieWax) orange sheet errors, running vertically on the same angle from Paul Coleman (at bottom of green sheet) to Harold Baines at the top of the green sheet. Some of the examples in the middle have a very faded blue line that is not very visible on my scanner so I'll just include the Coleman and Baines below (edit - Baines error is not quite visible unless image blown up):
This would **seem to ** suggest that my errors are related to the NNOF errors. Additionally, I found a very interesting Jim Leyland error, similar to the Jeff King and exactly like Saucywombat's John Wathan error. I would point out, and I think that Saucywombat (what is your first name? haha) would agree, that he had a good chunk of orange error sheet cards among his collection so it's not out of the realm of possibility that the John Wathan and the Jim Leyland error are from related print runs (i.e. more NNOF connections).
Leyland error:
Saucywombat's Wathan error:
Comments/additional theories welcome.
Opened up another box, more blackless green sheet errors. Pulled copies of all the errors I got in the first box besides the Leyland. All orange sheet cards normal, and they were thoroughly scrutinized. I think I found the end of the streak. #39 Curt Ford and #686 Carmelo Martinez, neighbors of the Chris Speier that I first pulled, showed good blackless chunks in the lower right and left borders. Unfortunately both the Curt Ford and and Carmelo Martinez cards got clipped by something in the printing process and tore up the left side of the card border. A lot of cards from both the blue and green sheets were clipped in this manner. Here are the cards as they would appear on an uncut sheet:
Ford scan:
Melo scan:
I believe I have one more box to open that contains green sheet errors. The other boxes I got from the seller were from a different case and so far contain no errors.
Great stuff! Congrats!
I have to say that I do not find it to be a coincidence that these error sheets featured heavily scuffed cards, in some cases (such as the Curt Ford), in the exact location as the blackless area. While these errors are in nearly the exact location on the printing sheet as the NNOF error streak, I have yet to find an orange sheet error or any of the "earmarks" of an orange sheet error that RookieWax found, so at this point, while it may be possibly that they were created around the same time as the NNOF error, I do not think they are directly related.
I do think that the scuffs on these cards could represent new evidence as to the cause of the blackless errors and should be brought into consideration when discussing different theories. I'd love to hear from some of the regular commentators on this thread but they all seem to have vanished from the boards or have little interest in these new discoveries. And @saucywombat I hope I didn't turn you off of this thread with the way I presented my opinions. I've researched the offset lithography process quite a bit more in the last few weeks and I really don't feel as strongly one way or the other about the cause of these errors, be it rubber blanket or printing plate or obstruction... It has been fun uncovering more evidence and integrating that into this thread but I really do need others' help to reach any conclusions on this, and I would still love to hear more detail about why you think it is a printing press error.
Also of note, I found some blue sheet cards with scuffs exactly like the ones you see on the Carmelo Martinez and the Curt Ford.
Finally, there is still one more green sheet error box to open that I am saving for my brother. I am also working on something else that I have to keep under wraps for the time being.
A quote from Ross on page 10 which appears to be what saucy was getting at in the first place:
"This is how it has been explained to me:
The amount of repetition that occurred to create the NNOF Thomas in mass quantity can hypothetically only be created by a faulty plate. If the obstruction were on the blanket, black ink from the plate would still transfer to a solid obstruction and the ink would then transfer to the sheet. If a chemical obstruction appeared on the blanket, you would see pooling of ink around the perimeter of the obstruction and possibly randomly through the obstruction itself. If the obstruction were directly on the sheet, only one run would be affected.
Beyond that, the shape of the error is organic, not fixed as would be expected by a physical obstruction. I do now think they were potentially created by the same plate, and if not the same plate, plates that were side by side in production."
Should be noted that Ross' blog draws a different conclusion.
It was a damaged blanket no doubt. The black boarder around the name and the Topps logo are partly missing. The printer probably did not notice until several sheets were ran then stopped to change the blanket.
-My 2 cents.
First off, I found this youtube video helpful in explaining the offset lithographic printing process.
And this diagram showing the path of the printing material (cardstock for the purpose of our discussion) through the 4 different CMYK printing plates:
The video likely depicts far more technologically advanced printing apparatus than was used in '89/90 but I think it is still accurate of the process.
Now, relevant to the blanket vs. printing plate/bad neg. discussion is this thread I found on Net54 forums. Steve Birmingham posts regarding the Thomas NNOF:
"The 90 Thomas and the Wiggins/Flanagan pair shown are entirely unrelated errors.
The Wiggins/Flanagan is from water or solvent dripping onto the plate or blanket in the press. It's a fairly common error for the era, but finding a matched pair is very cool. It's also the sort of error that is probably unique or nearly so.
The Thomas is from some debris, probably tape blocking some of the black plate from being exposed when it was being made. A printing error, but a recurring one. Probably uncommon since the plate would have been replaced pretty quickly. I'd call it a variation, since it's the result of a different plate. Others might not because of the unintentional nature of the error."
"It's possible that it recurred over a few sheets, but no more than a few.
When the operator adds water sometimes it drips onto either the plate or the offset blanket. If it drips on the plate it would probably only be on one sheet since the plate is wet and inked each rotation, and the pressure should squeeze out enough water to keep it to one sheet. I can see water getting on the rubber blanket maybe lasting a couple rotations under the right conditions.
If it was solvent, which is used occasionally to remove ink buildup on the rollers, then it might last a bit longer on the blanket. But again probably only one or two turns on the plate since the water would float it off and the pressure would push it out.
I do have one card showing where the ink floated on a very overwatered plate. Pretty odd effect.
Steve B"
And a response to a poster's comment later:
" I didn't explain that very well.
The group of 90T related to the Thomas are from something causing the plate to be made incorrectly.
The plates are made from a set of large negatives called the mask. It's usually a bunch of negatives taped to an opaque paper or plastic sheet. The plate is exposed much like a photograph would be, then developed. If something like a hunk of tape or strip of paper was between the mask and the plate that part wouldn't get exposed and that portion of that color wouldn't print.
I think the 90T and the Seaver/Clemens were both caused that way. The 90T is the most extreme example I've seen. Very sloppy work by the platemaker.
Other cards missing areas of color may be similar, but it's just one way of having missing color in an area.
Incorrect original
Incorrect mask
Bad plate
Solvent/water drips
Debris in the press.
Too much wetting of the plate
Underinking
Damaged/stained paper stock
Misfeed of a sheet
Partial print of the sheet - Impression cylinder not engaged for the whole rotation
Sheet not fed through at all
I think that's it, there could be others I missed.
And some of those have related errors.
Debris in the press can sometimes wrap around the plate, get inked and print what looks like faded solid color.
If there's too little water instead of too little the entire plate can get inked to varying degrees and will also print a light solid layer.
All are pretty cool, but the only one I'd call a variation is the incorrectly made plate.
Steve B "
Link:
http://www.net54baseball.com/showthread.php?t=187722&page=8
To summarize, it sounds like Steve B - who seems to have some printing experience - came to the conclusion that the cause of the NNOF was likely a physical object (tape or the like) that blocked the negative from properly exposing onto the black plate during platemaking process. This would result in the error being reproduced exactly the same way for a series of press runs. At this time the only thing linking my green sheet errors to the NNOF errors is the diagonal blue lines running up and down the sheet. The blackless areas in similar locations on the printing sheets could be a coincidence (in other words, the same platemaking error happening twice) and linking them together might have been wishful thinking on my part. While they do have the same physical characteristics (i.e., caused by the same phenomenon), they have different overall shapes, indicating two separate events.
At this point, unless I find anything else linking my findings to the NNOF, I am going to take the discussion of green sheet errors elsewhere as I don't want to distract the conversation away from the purpose of the thread - Ross' (BoB) saucywombat, Rookiewax and others' discoveries of the NNOF and related errors. Thanks to all who were patient with my ramblings on the subject. West
Edited to elaborate.
Well first let me say that the four color printing process, a variation of gravure printing, that produces baseball cards, most commercial cardboard packaging and newspaper, is a process that an immense amount of variables play in to. A quick web search will reveal a great deal of scholarly (include complex physics) energy is devoted to perfecting the process. Think fluid dynamics, capillary actions, heat, pressure, static electricity, viscosity, paper quality, ideal chemical properties, speed of rollers, thickness or rollers, tension between rollers, etc.
It defies a short explanation so if anyone is so inclined, check out printwiki.org/Gravure
Pretty interesting
Another good site which shows common defects in the 4 color process (and basic catalog of every PD in the history of Topps) see www.offsetprintingtechnology.com/sub-categories/on-press-troubleshooting
Gravure printing involves at its heart the engraving of an image onto a printing plate. in the mid-19th century processes were developed to allow for the chemical etching of photographic images into metal. This allowed for the first time for photographic images to be accurately reproduced through press printing (as it was not possible to perfectly reproduce by hand on to the plate). Interestingly today it is possible to physically etch an image with digital technology which can eliminate the chemical process but not possible in 1990.
So at some point Topps photographed and developed the the "F" plate black image. This is when the most likely error occurred that produced the blackless area on the F sheet.
Undeveloped patches are a known problem in developing photographic prints, which would be loosely defined as an area of the negative that has been unaffected by processing solutions. This may have gone unnoticed and the image transferred to the plate.
Also a possibility is that a chemical process is used to etch the photographic negative into the plate. So a perfectly good image can be distorted if the chemical etching process does not go well. I think this is probably what we are looking at with the "F" plate. In this example of the process you can easily see how bubbling or streaking of the sort present on the "F" sheet are easily made during the application of the image to the roller plate.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uwPVKJmElbU
The image in the video is known as a "resist". Problems that occur in rotogravure printing can include the resist not being properly applied. The video above shows a simplified process (usually the resist stays adhered longer to the plate for the image to be properly transferred). The resist usually requires a more involved process for stripping it away from the plate. Sometimes the resist (or parts there of) remain adhered to the plate. This is a very plausible explanation for the errors. To me it seems clear from the type of blackless areas produced and the quantity in which they were produced point clearly to an issue created by the production of the photographic image that produced the resist or its application or removal from the black "F" plate.
This is my position. I always appreciate interest in this matter but it would be nice if this thread was powered by people excitedly finding more of the blackless errors discovered in this thread. We need a cable show to pick up this "Valuable" error and get people looking for them (BTW - whatever happened to History Detectives?). The only press has been the one Beckett blurb more than 5 years ago. Not sure that our very academic discourse in gravure printing will help this cause.
saucywombat@hotmail.com
So having Frank scribble in the name box apparently adds $28,800 of value. Yeah...I'm set. Figured someone would do this someday. I always liked this card better unsigned.
www.ebay.com/itm/182423206068
I'd love to have a signed one, ut adding his name looks awful
Agree ... bad idea
They go for about $1,500. Like his name in the box is gonna make it worth 25k
That's quite a shirt Frank had on while he was signing the card though.
Not to derail...but I'd also like a signed bonds opening day error!
Brief update - I opened two more boxes that came from the same case I got the earlier green sheet errors. I did not pull a single green sheet error and all orange sheet cards were normal.
Next up is a half of a supermarket case. I will probably open these cards over the course of the next two weeks, unless I stumble on something exciting...
I'd like to add another quote from Steve B over on the Net54 boards. I PM'd him on that site and he responded with some valuable information on printing which I find pertinent to this discussion. What follows is Steve's writing:
"Those green sheet errors are interesting. The location isn't exactly the location of the orange sheet ones, but is really similar. I'll have to think a bit about whether I think they're related technically, or just coincidentally. Right now I'm leaning towards them being related technically. Perhaps if the orange sheet was in fact tape they may have done a poor job of cleaning off the adhesive, leaving some in almost the same spot but a bit higher and to the left. Some plate exposure frames have extra room, so it might just be where the plate was located under the glass.
A couple of the more major ones are consistent enough to be a bad plate, the minor ones, especially the one with the frame break at the right may just be transient problems that happened along with the bad plate. Or, if you're lucky, someone noticed the massive frame break and fixed it by scratching the missing border into the black plate. I might be able to tell, but I'd have to see a high res scan -something around 600+dpi. Flaws repaired like that are really unusual on baseball cards. None come to mind right off. The 81 fleer pointing fingers may have been scratched in as a joke.
The other cards shown, are also interesting, but somewhat unrelated.
The ones with extra yellow on the backs are fairly straightforward overinking. Not at all uncommon, and a somewhat transient error. Overinking sticks around until you limit the ink supply and a few rotations after too.
The thin lines, both the red and the blue are either plate scratches or drag marks. A bit of debris could have scratched the plate for that color, and once scratched the line of the scratch would print. It's possible to fix it in unprinted areas like the border of a card with a white border. But it's not always caught, and often being later in the use of the plate it isn't usually fixed. I don't think I have or have seen an example of a repaired one.
Many presses use a strip of tinsel like material to help reduce static electricity buildup. Conditions need to be right for the buildup, and it's more of an issue on higher speed presses. If the ink is wet enough the anti static strip can drag through the ink and carry some of it across the surface of the sheet as it passes. Drag marks can be consistent, but usually aren't. So they'll be differing thicknesses and often not always in the same spot.
Plate scratches on blue and red would be unrelated to flaws on the black plate, with the exception that the plates would be used at about the same time.
I'm not sure if Topps was using presses that printed more than one color at a time, or if they were sheet fed or web fed web meaning running a continuous roll of paper/cardstock instead of individual sheets. Considering the production levels I'd have to think they were likely done on a 5-6 color web fed press. (For the basic CMYK plus clearcoat and maybe something else like solid colors in a few spots instead of CMYK halftones. ) If that's correct, the plates would have been used together, and probably changed as a set. So the scratches will always coincide with the flawed black plates, except for cards done early in the print run before the scratches happened.
The other theories-
Damaged blanket - possible but unlikely. The extent of the orange sheet missing area would mean extensive damage to the blanket. Either from a serious bit of debris getting into the press -like a chunk of wood serious- that ripped a lot of surface off the blanket. Possible since the blanket is usually a rubber like substance backed with cloth.
Or the rubber started coming apart - less likely since there aren't any cards showing the damage as progressive.
Either way it would have been a pretty noticeable event. In the first case, the blanket would have been changed immediately or nearly so. In the latter it should have been caught before taking out such a large area of the blanket surface. There's just too many of the cards out there for either to make any sense.
Solvent etc.
Pretty much already covered. Solvent spills don't look like that (Like 99.9% sure, but outliers happen) And they're very transient events.
The mechanical damage you mention is almost certainly the result of poor handling in between the press and the cutting. I have a stack of I think 3 of the same card with extensive damage at the upper right that happened before cutting, and they cards were still stacked when cut so they stayed together. Amazingly they went into either a pack or vending box together got unwrapped and ended up in a dealers inventory still stacked and slightly stuck together."
A new plot twist.
Got some scans done up at high resolution. Newest additions, after 5 years of searching:
Upon receiving the cards, I noticed immediately that the Acker and Hart had very unusual metallic colored scratches. Upon close inspection with a loupe, I observed that the scratches dragged black ink and deposited it at the end of the scratch. You can see this very clearly with the Acker closeups I posted above. This tells me that the scratches occurred on the (NNOF error producing) black color press. After searching through some of the other cards that I acquired along with the Acker and Hart, I was able to find the scratches on #281 Kevin Bass and #314 Donald Harris. The Bass even appears to have a silvery piece of cardstock embedded into the card.
Bass scan:
Piece of cardstock or other material embedded in Bass card:
Harris scan:
Upon consulting with a couple people familiar with printing, including Steve B on Net54, the consensus is generally that these scratches, while interesting, are unrelated to the cause of the blackless errors. They could be caused by anti-static material on the presses getting into the press.
The likely cause of the blackless NNOF errors remains, from what I have been told based on the evidence, a faulty printing plate. Not any physical obstruction in the press but a physical obstruction that blocked the negative from being properly exposed to the printing plate. Anyhow, very happy with the additions considering the enormous amount of persistence and legwork that was required to bring them in.
I personally think a dirty blanket is a possible explanation for the similarity in the issue between the green sheet and orange sheet; some solvent on a blanket used for more than one press preventing ink transfer in both instances.
Great hunting!
I would think we could speak to someone who actually worked on developing and printing baseball cards (during the time this technology was used) to show them all the evidence and hear what they have to say. It shouldn't be that hard. However, Topps is proving to be an incredibly secretive company. I can only assume it stems from getting sued by Fleer over anti-trust issues. They had to protect trade secrets and the only way to do that was to keep information from getting out. Any other guesses? Also, we're now 28 years from the creation of the error and it's likely that some former employees have passed away.
I've also scoured Youtube in an effort to get a better grasp of the offset lithography process, but those videos obviously don't have anything about troubleshooting in them. Definitely interested in any other relevant theories, and we can't realistically rule anything out without talking to the guys who made the plates and ran the presses back then.
edited to add -
I would love for the green sheet errors to be related to the NNOF sheet, either because of a improperly exposed printing plate, a shared rubber blanket or other as yet unknown reason. They do share three similarities that I believe are not coincidental: the relative location on the printing sheet (The Speier error occupies the Tapani location), the blackless areas and both blue and red diagonal scratches running vertically down the sheet.
Is this the “progressive NNOF” that we once wondered exists? I have a strong inclination that this is actually a legit card and not a fake due to the slight blackless location in the ‘T’ of “White Sox” that is consistent with all legitimate NNOFs.
You can also see in the closeup the slightly faded blackless area around Frank’s stirrup that is consistent with other NNOFs. My mind is blown. 28 years after the fact. Just wow. I gotta talk to some printers.
https://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/0?mpre=https://www.ebay.com/ulk/itm/372496340533
The plot thickens (or darkens, I guess?, whatever).
I think the card is very unique but without an authentication from one of the major three graders, I don’t see it topping 1/4 of the price ($2500). I would have a hard time paying even that knowing that none of the major companies will slab it.
Still a very interesting and unique card and possibly important piece of the puzzle.
Personally - and as of now have yet to have input from someone with printing experience - I think it was the result of another improperly exposed plate where the negative was blocked by the same piece of tape/adhesive that caused the NNOF. A close look at the card shows that the contrast of the image is higher - and thus darker - than a typical NNOF. Is it possible that whatever blocked the negative was slightly transparent, and the black plate that created this error was simply exposed for a bit longer than the other NNOF plate? A longer exposure could allow light through an obstruction that was slightly transparent and thus create this error with a faded name.
This opens up some more questions. Why is this a one-off? If this error - shall we call it FNOF (faded name on front)? #414C? - was created by another improperly exposed black printing plate, why didn't more surface? A possible theory is that the plate that created this card went into production right as they were catching this error, and that quality control caught the majority of the error sheets printed. Even if say 10 or 15 examples like this got out, they may have gotten lost or chucked in the early period when no one knew about the error or its value.
Just thinking out loud here.
Man, if this is legit, this could be a really big part of the puzzle
George Brett, Roger Clemens and Tommy Brady.
Very intriguing.
Bosox1976
Waiting to hear from Steve B who has helped me in the past on printing questions, but I wonder if this variation - if legit - would lend more credence to Ross’s dirty rubber blanket theory. In order for this error to be caused by faulty printing plates, are we not now talking three distinct error plates? The partial NNOF that Joe discovered, the faded NNOF, and the true NNOF. Unless there are some inking conditions I am unaware of that could produce this card in a “one-off” variation from the actual NNOF plate. That cannot be ruled out either without input from someone who is experienced in offset lithography.
I thought about that too. But if you were trying to fake a NNOF, wouldn't you fake a NNOF? Doesn't it seem like a whole lot of work to make up a partial NNOF, come up with some backstory, sub it to major graders, and then try to convince a bunch of obscure error collectors it's worth $10,000? I'd just fake a 10 NNOFs, put them up for $500-$1500 and sell it to any one of the suckers who regularly bid on those items.
I agree though about being careful (finances wise) and we absolutely should be skeptical about it's authenticity. Even if real it's only worth what some nerd error collector will pay for it, and my funds are limited. Hard to say what a healthy price would be if you buying knowing you can't slab it, and then when you go to sell it you know everyone will be asking the same questions you are right now. $10,000 is completely crazy at this point, it would only fetch a fraction of that in a true auction. Definitely not the first time I've seen stupid prices on NNOF related stuff.
Also I don't see any way for someone to be "in the know" enough to fake the bit of black ink loss around the "T" in "White Sox". I've always noticed that distinguishing marker on authentic NNOFs and have always recognized its absence on fakes. Here it is on the PSA 10 Dmitri Young NNOF below:
This version - I'll call it FNOF for now - has a larger blackless spot by the "T" in White Sox that is very interesting, and it also has a bit of black ink loss above Frank's eye as well.
Additionally, on the FNOF, it has the dark line through the yellow border below where the F should be in Frank's name. Here it is next to an authentic NNOF:
Hard to fake all these things in hopes of unknown profits for a card you can't slab that there may not be a large market for.
Agreed - exercise extreme caution if actually thinking of bidding. I am more interested in this card as a potential piece of evidence than as an investment. I see good fakes go for anywhere from $75-$1000, and that is probably the range in which this card should be valued.
Looks like this particular card was a no-holder.
buying O-Pee-Chee (OPC) baseball
Lots of great detective work on this almost 10-year-old thread. It's been a treat to re-read the start of this and how detailed it has gotten.
buying O-Pee-Chee (OPC) baseball
Well according to the listing he has tried, although the PSA label shown in the picture proves nothing. If submitted I believe they would not grade the variation because it is not recognized in SCD. There have been multiple discussions about what errors PSA and BGS will grade and it is a source of frustration for many who collect oddities.
I prefer not to assume malicious intent before hearing the seller's side of the story. Easy for me to say as I am not considering purchase. Honestly though, as someone who has reviewed hundreds of authentic and fake NNOF and owns many of the other blackless variations, the card appears to be real.
A summary of my talk with a former Topps employee:
According to him Topps did NOT have printing capabilities at Duryea in 1990. They subcontracted out to other printers and had a company representative doing quality control at the printing house. The uncut sheets were then sent to Duryea to be cut up and assembled into packs, boxes and cases before being shipped out to retailers.
Additionally, despite rumors to the contrary, this person did not believe that the NNOF was a "first run" printing error. His reasoning was that there was meticulous attention to detail for the first print run and more than a few people had to sign off on the first proofs. He believes that the error occurred sometime later in the production cycle as a result of some obstruction in the printing press. I didn't get into the finer details of the theory of the error causation (obstruction in the press vs. obstruction on the negative during plate exposure) as he was not directly involved in platemaking and printing.
He estimated that quality control at the printers pulled a sheet once every 1000 sheets to check for errors. This may explain how 500-1000 NNOFs slipped out into packs.
He did not remember the error itself which is not unusual considering the massive amount of production occurring. 1990 was probably one of the peak years in terms of total base set production run. Also, this person was employed at Duryea and the error would have been caught at wherever printing was occurring.
The conversation was illuminating and it was quite interesting to speak to someone who was on the inside back then. This person gave me permission to share this information but otherwise wishes to remain anonymous and enjoy retirement and I will respect his wishes and not share any other details regarding him or his employment.
Tonight I came close to pulling a NNOF. Got this towards the end of opening two wax boxes that contained no other errors:
Remarkable. Another piece of the puzzle perhaps?
George Brett, Roger Clemens and Tommy Brady.
To refresh your memory, this was the Thomas error that @RookieWax found in his error case before going on to pull 4 NNOF Thomas cards and the entire blackless run. I found this Thomas in the LAST PACK that was at the bottom of one of two retail wax boxes I bought. Here are several other examples of the card -
Joe's pull -
One I found on Ebay two years ago -
I've said this before on this thread but based on what I have heard from people with printing experience and from what the Topps employee told me about the production process, I believe this card came immediately after the NNOF error. Someone at the press found the bad black plate and had another plate worked up but didn't get some residual adhesive off the negative that had blocked the first NNOF exposure. The ran off another 500-1000 or so sheets but then found the Thomas and Lawton partial blackless errors and fixed it for good.
Lawton partial blackless vs. blackless:
Obviously I attempted to get more wax boxes from this source but this is all they had. I think it's very possible that there were some blackless errors among the other boxes in that particular case but they are long gone.
Here are two more I found ---- sorry the scanner didn't work, I can correct in another scan at work ...... offer if you want em'
Topps White Out (silver) letters Alex Gordon
80 Topps Greg Pryor “No Name"
90 ProSet Dexter Manley error
90 Topps Jeff King Yellow back
1958 Topps Pancho Herrera (no“a”)
81 Topps Art Howe (black smear above hat)
91 D A. Hawkins BC-12 “Pitcher”