@craig44 said:
This would be the first discovery of blackless pulled from anything other than wax. I suppose anything is possible, but I am skeptical.
Well in all fairness I have most of them and really have no idea of the exact source. I do remember riding my bike to the Revco nearest my house and hitting the rack packs hard because you got that all star card + you could see at least 5 of the cards you were getting.
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Hello, I am so glad that someone referred me to this site. I've really learned a lot over the past couple of days. Surprisingly I've been getting a lot of origin questions. I can 100% assure everyone that these were pulled from a rack pack. I don't know all the history behind the cards but it's absolutely true. These have been sitting in a shoebox for the last 30 years with a bunch of other random stuff my Mom must have saved for me.
I also mentioned in another post that all of the errors came bunched together. Every 3rd or 4th card was messed up in the packs. I remember the day vividly because at the time I was a pissed off young teenager thinking I got ripped off. My best friend pulled the NNOF Thomas the same day from the same batch. His packs also had a ton of errors in them and they went straight into the garbage can. I have several more cards with weird blue lines running up them.
I watched a few YouTube videos of people pulling just a single NNOF Thomas with no other errors and that was not my experience at all. The rack packs we opened were full of them. There is no way I'm remembering incorrectly because it was the only time I purchased Topps while in Japan. It was super rare for the military bases to have cards for sale. The few other time I was able to buy cards I went with Donruss due to Topps quality control.
Here is a photo of the first 8 I found. Since then I also found a McGriff that I sleeved up 30 years ago because I didn't notice the error at the time. I also found a second Morris that I listed on eBay.
If anyone has any advise on what to do I'd really appreciate it. I almost fell for a scam for several of my cards. The COVID lock down has given me time to rediscover this passion. I've been on a tear buying up rookie cards issued during my 20 year hiatus.
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@HalfNipponese said:
Hello, I am so glad that someone referred me to this site. I've really learned a lot over the past couple of days. Surprisingly I've been getting a lot of origin questions. I can 100% assure everyone that these were pulled from a rack pack. I don't know all the history behind the cards but it's absolutely true. These have been sitting in a shoebox for the last 30 years with a bunch of other random stuff my Mom must have saved for me.
I also mentioned in another post that all of the errors came bunched together. Every 3rd or 4th card was messed up in the packs. I remember the day vividly because at the time I was a pissed off young teenager thinking I got ripped off. My best friend pulled the NNOF Thomas the same day from the same batch. His packs also had a ton of errors in them and they went straight into the garbage can. I have several more cards with weird blue lines running up them.
I watched a few YouTube videos of people pulling just a single NNOF Thomas with no other errors and that was not my experience at all. The rack packs we opened were full of them. There is no way I'm remembering because it was the only time I purchased Topps while in Japan. It was super rare for the military bases to have cards for sale. The few other time I was able to buy cards I went with Donruss due to Topps quality control.
Here is a photo of the first 8 I found. Since then I also found a McGriff that I sleeved up 30 years ago because I didn't notice the error at the time. I also found a second Morris that I listed on eBay.
If anyone has any advise on what to do I'd really appreciate it. I almost fell for a scam for several of my cards. The COVID lock down has given me time to rediscover this passion. I've been on a tear buying up rookie cards issued during my 20 year hiatus.
That is a tremendous find you have there. It certainly will change our understanding of the packout of the blackless cards. Can you share the general area where you purchased the cards? It has been mostly agreed upon that most NNOF Thomas's cake from the north east. Also, so you remember if they were purchased from retail or card shops?
Sorry for all the questions, just trying to fill out the picture
When I finish work today I'll post a photo of all the cards I found. There are some blue boarder cards that also look very strange and have misprints on them. Could these be garbage packs that Topps sent to other countries to dump bad inventory?
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@HalfNipponese said:
Hello, I am so glad that someone referred me to this site. I've really learned a lot over the past couple of days. Surprisingly I've been getting a lot of origin questions. I can 100% assure everyone that these were pulled from a rack pack. I don't know all the history behind the cards but it's absolutely true. These have been sitting in a shoebox for the last 30 years with a bunch of other random stuff my Mom must have saved for me.
I also mentioned in another post that all of the errors came bunched together. Every 3rd or 4th card was messed up in the packs. I remember the day vividly because at the time I was a pissed off young teenager thinking I got ripped off. My best friend pulled the NNOF Thomas the same day from the same batch. His packs also had a ton of errors in them and they went straight into the garbage can. I have several more cards with weird blue lines running up them.
I watched a few YouTube videos of people pulling just a single NNOF Thomas with no other errors and that was not my experience at all. The rack packs we opened were full of them. There is no way I'm remembering because it was the only time I purchased Topps while in Japan. It was super rare for the military bases to have cards for sale. The few other time I was able to buy cards I went with Donruss due to Topps quality control.
Here is a photo of the first 8 I found. Since then I also found a McGriff that I sleeved up 30 years ago because I didn't notice the error at the time. I also found a second Morris that I listed on eBay.
If anyone has any advise on what to do I'd really appreciate it. I almost fell for a scam for several of my cards. The COVID lock down has given me time to rediscover this passion. I've been on a tear buying up rookie cards issued during my 20 year hiatus.
That is a tremendous find you have there. It certainly will change our understanding of the packout of the blackless cards. Can you share the general area where you purchased the cards? It has been mostly agreed upon that most NNOF Thomas's cake from the north east. Also, so you remember if they were purchased from retail or card shops?
Sorry for all the questions, just trying to fill out the picture
I'll be more than happy answering any questions anyone may have. These were purchased on Yokota Airbase the first half of 1990. I don't remember the exact time of year but I do know my friends and I were planning on attending the MLB vs. Japanese All Star games in Tokyo. We made the 2 hour trip to the base in hopes of finding cards to get autographed. The cards were sold either in the commissary or exchange. Those are basically the retail stores on the base. Inventory from the stores was imported by AAFES. I'm not sure what that stands for but they ran the stores on the base. I do know that a couple times I ordered cards through the AAFES catalog and they were shipped out of Washington state. I had a strange set of 1990 Hoops cards that were yellow instead of white. That box hasn't been found yet but I have a whole garage full of stuff to look through.
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I was asked about the sample size that produced these cards. I'd guess the box these were in had about 200-250 cards. About 20% of them have some sort of defect. The orange and blue cards seem to have the most. I'm pretty sure the storage order was the same as the day I pulled them. At a minimum it was pretty close. I found 8 of the cards in the last 100 or so I looked at. The Franco and Fisk were back to back. I recall (but not 100% certain) one or two of the rack packs were far more loaded with errors.
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Well I may have even better news. I discovered at least 1 more unreported error from sheet F. I think there are even more but I'm trying to find clean copies to verify. Pictures to follow this evening. Does anyone know how we would get Beckett to validate?
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@HalfNipponese said:
Well I may have even better news. I discovered at least 1 more unreported error from sheet F. I think there are even more but I'm trying to find clean copies to verify. Pictures to follow this evening. Does anyone know how we would get Beckett to validate?
Not a lot of time to comment here but these are super fun and exciting developments!
What is the latest new discovery? Which player?
Mike Scott has a orange blob on the upper right hand corner. I have 2 and the blob is present on both.
Ozzie Smith has spots by his left leg and a thin black line by his left shoulder. I don't have another copy to compare it to.
Paul Assenmacher name has a missing black spot on the "R" in his last name. I don't have a comparison card.
Mike Fetters has a small white spot in the upper left hand corner. No comparison card.
Sergio Valdez has a couple small circles to the left of his hat. I have 2 and the error is present on both.
The Ozzie has me the most intrigued.
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I just noticed this thread is 11 years old. You guys are dedicated.
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Please excuse the photo quality. Kids, a dog and poor lighting conditions made it difficult. You guys be the judge. Am I seeing what I want to see or are these true "Blackless" errors? I'm only semi-confident in the Assenmacher.
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@HalfNipponese said:
Mike Scott has a orange blob on the upper right hand corner. I have 2 and the blob is present on both.
Ozzie Smith has spots by his left leg and a thin black line by his left shoulder. I don't have another copy to compare it to.
Paul Assenmacher name has a missing black spot on the "R" in his last name. I don't have a comparison card.
Mike Fetters has a small white spot in the upper left hand corner. No comparison card.
Sergio Valdez has a couple small circles to the left of his hat. I have 2 and the error is present on both.
The Ozzie has me the most intrigued.
Based on the pictures the spots are all "fisheye" type errors and fairly standard variations. The Scott is somewhat atypical in that it is large but same idea. Lines could be part of the production process or scratches. These cards would not be considered part of the blackless error.
Congratulations on your find though. Wow. Really a world class haul. Needle in haystack does not begin to describe the rarity of your stash. Great story as well.
Always looking for 1993-1999 Baseball Finest Refractors and1994 Football Finest Refractors. saucywombat@hotmail.com
Based on the pictures the spots are all "fisheye" type errors and fairly standard variations. The Scott is somewhat atypical in that it is large but same idea. Lines could be part of the production process or scratches. These cards would not be considered part of the blackless error.
Congratulations on your find though. Wow. Really a world class haul. Needle in haystack does not begin to describe the rarity of your stash. Great story as well.
Thanks! The search is officially over. I found a second McGriff in my sleeved cards but my wife and I decided to leave any further finds for my kids when they grow up. When they start their families in 20 years, I'd like to send them on a treasure hunt. Maybe there's another All-Star card waiting to be found.
Ten of the 11 cards I have will be sent off for grading this weekend. I'm going to sacrifice my duplicate Morris to pay for the extremely expensive grading. When they get back I'll post one last pic before stashing 9 away. I'll keep 1 Crime Dog available to sell when he gets into the HOF. I'd love to build awareness of the legendary 1990 Topps "Blackless" set and see values take off. Thank you everyone for the help. Thank you Ross for creating this treasure map.
I had to post a pic of this last card. It's giving me the creeps and I look forward the my future nightmares. It looks like someone cut off Lee Mazzilli's face and wore it like a mask for this card.
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If anyone would like to discuss a possible fall auction with a east coast action house please PM me. I don't know if this is going to happen but I advised the director of acquisitions it would be a cool idea. It was offered to me for my find. Someone should really do a documentary about all the effort everyone here has put in over the years. You guys have collectively put together the greatest modern day treasure map the in the hobby.
Update: For those watching my Morris auction I want to apologize. I am temporarily pulling down the card so it can be graded and authenticated with it's sister cards. If you bid I'm very sorry. I will be notifying the high bidder when the card is relisted by either myself or an auction house.
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Hey all- super excited to see that this particular thread is full of newer finds and discussion. I figured I would pop back on when I saw the recent listing on eBay for the Morris. I wanted to bid. Totally understand if the seller wants to wait and see exactly what he has. Congrats on finding the recent stash- some cool stuff! I am interested in any of these cards if folks are willing to part. Thanks
@Richie0131 said:
Glad to see this is still a strong thread! Heres my finds....anyone know about this type of error? "Yellowless
None of these cards have any relation to the NNOF/blackless cards discussed in this thread.
Each of those cards you have posted is a type of offset print flaw where, in this case)l, the yellow plate was misaligned with the others. Since the yellow is so apparent, calling them “yellowless” can be ruled out. These are a very common type of print flaw and affect all cards in the run and in each of the colors used in their production.
So I made a rather strange observation while trying to find out more value info. When I posted the map I noticed I found every card for rows 1, 2 and 4 but not a thing from row 3. Now my friend DID pull the Frank Thomas. I'm remembering us finding all our errors in 3 or 4 packs. If my theory is correct, the Thomas will be accompanied by row 3 cards.
Assuming the information above, I found my errors with doubles. My friend only found one of the Thomas cards. Even if only 2 sheets of the cards made it into the rack pack line, there is at least one more Thomas that was discovered in a rack pack. There is a good chance that Thomas card is still in Japan or was at least purchased there. Plus, it means my friend may have the row 3 cards I'm missing. But this is all crazy talk.
What if the 3rd row theory is true.? That means all legitimate multi pack breaks where a Thomas is discovered should be accompanied with other 3rd row errors. It will help legitimize future pulls of Thomas cards.
Does anyone know someone who found a Thomas by breaking multiple packs?
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@HalfNipponese said:
So I made a rather strange observation while trying to find out more value info. When I posted the map I noticed I found every card for rows 1, 2 and 4 but not a thing from row 3. Now my friend DID pull the Frank Thomas. I'm remembering us finding all our errors in 3 or 4 packs. If my theory is correct, the Thomas will be accompanied by row 3 cards.
Assuming the information above, I found my errors with doubles. My friend only found one of the Thomas cards. Even if only 2 sheets of the cards made it into the rack pack line, there is at least one more Thomas that was discovered in a rack pack. There is a good chance that Thomas card is still in Japan or was at least purchased there. Plus, it means my friend may have the row 3 cards I'm missing. But this is all crazy talk.
What if the 3rd row theory is true.? That means all legitimate multi pack breaks where a Thomas is discovered should be accompanied with other 3rd row errors. It will help legitimize future pulls of Thomas cards.
Does anyone know someone who found a Thomas by breaking multiple packs?
Your theory may be true for your specific scenario - finding the NNOF in Rak Paks, but you are literally the only person we have ever found who has done it.
I’ve been watching the evidence for the past 8 years and keeping tabs on unopened supply of 1990 Topps. The number of sealed cases coming up for sale has steadily decreased, and the price has gone up. I don’t know how, but Probstein just managed to sell a normal sealed wax case for $1600. Most of them still seem to go for $400-500 (the cost of shipping these has doubled or tripled in the last few years) But you used to be able to get them for $200 pretty regularly.
Given this, I believe it is possible, even likely that another NNOF or trove of blackless cards are sitting in a pack somewhere but the odds are very steep. It’s exponentially more likely that the next find of blackless 1990 Topps is buried in someone’s collection that somebody’s mom is about to throw out. Your story is truly incredible and one of a kind. I was just mentioning recently that I hoped the recent uptick in collecting interest during quarantine inspired someone to go through their ‘90 Topps cards and unearth some of these beauties. I never expected it would result in a unique find like this. Congratulations on your cards and please stick around and let us know how the grades come in. Also, please continue to post scans (not pics, if you can manage, you can scan from your phone in the “Notes” app, super easy to do) of any oddities you come across. I will post a more comprehensive list soon, but I would be interested to see scans of all your blue line cards, as I have most of them and would like to compare. Also, if you have the Cal Ripken All star card, there should be an unusual white tadpole in the bottom left area by his leg in the black background.
Your theory may be true for your specific scenario - finding the NNOF in Rak Paks, but you are literally the only person we have ever found who has done it.
I’ve been watching the evidence for the past 8 years and keeping tabs on unopened supply of 1990 Topps. The number of sealed cases coming up for sale has steadily decreased, and the price has gone up. I don’t know how, but Probstein just managed to sell a normal sealed wax case for $1600. Most of them still seem to go for $400-500 (the cost of shipping these has doubled or tripled in the last few years) But you used to be able to get them for $200 pretty regularly.
Given this, I believe it is possible, even likely that another NNOF or trove of blackless cards are sitting in a pack somewhere but the odds are very steep. It’s exponentially more likely that the next find of blackless 1990 Topps is buried in someone’s collection that somebody’s mom is about to throw out. Your story is truly incredible and one of a kind. I was just mentioning recently that I hoped the recent uptick in collecting interest during quarantine inspired someone to go through their ‘90 Topps cards and unearth some of these beauties. I never expected it would result in a unique find like this. Congratulations on your cards and please stick around and let us know how the grades come in. Also, please continue to post scans (not pics, if you can manage, you can scan from your phone in the “Notes” app, super easy to do) of any oddities you come across. I will post a more comprehensive list soon, but I would be interested to see scans of all your blue line cards, as I have most of them and would like to compare. Also, if you have the Cal Ripken All star card, there should be an unusual white tadpole in the bottom left area by his leg in the black background.
Thanks West22! I'm learning something new every day. I was going to go buy a flat bed scanner this weekend. When I'm packing the cards up I'll get some scans of each individual card and some of the other F Sheet misprints. Boy have home office supplies become expensive.
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Just going over my cards one last time. I’ll sleeve up the cards with printing errors. The stack to the left have significant errors that are pretty noticeable. The right are just normal cards.
Such a shame that a lot are beat up from floating around in the shoebox.
If anyone would like some of the common errors, DM me your mailing address and I'll send them next week. Each boarder color is more prevalent with different types of errors. I know they're worthless but it's interesting to see how each color plate seemed to produce different issues.
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Love this thread, always enjoy seeing new info added. Hopefully I didn't miss what I'm about to ask, but is anyone aware of Topps' process between cutting and inserting?
I always thought they printed full 264 card sheets off site and (possibly cut down to 132 card half sheets before) sending to Topps/OPC. At that point, Topps comingled and cut (Topps used blades, OPC used wires) the sheets for the different distribution methods... hence the different collation patterns for wax/cello vs racks vs vending. Once cut, the cards were put into cases and queued up for inserting (just like cut card cases, but not meant for wholesale distribution). To create the packs, operators filled the appropriate "buckets" of an inserting machine with the cards from the different cut cases (along with gum/promotional offer cards/stickers/etc.).
If that's the case, the blackless sheets were probably grouped together when shipped to Topps... but they could have been cut for different packaging methods.
I bought 8 packs from RookieWax. It’s claimed these packs contain Blackless cards. I wanted a large enough sample size to pull one of the 13 blackless. Fuzzy math, but I think 8 packs give me a 92ish percent chance of pulling one. Something less of pulling two.
I randomly picked the serial numbers from all 33 available packs.
In the next week I’m going to start a new CU thread (so I don’t jam this one up) to get opinions on how to open these packs. I’m planning on them all at once. On some sort of “live” stream.
I’m open for suggestions. Watch for the new thread.
@baz518 said:
Love this thread, always enjoy seeing new info added. Hopefully I didn't miss what I'm about to ask, but is anyone aware of Topps' process between cutting and inserting?
I always thought they printed full 264 card sheets off site and (possibly cut down to 132 card half sheets before) sending to Topps/OPC. At that point, Topps comingled and cut (Topps used blades, OPC used wires) the sheets for the different distribution methods... hence the different collation patterns for wax/cello vs racks vs vending. Once cut, the cards were put into cases and queued up for inserting (just like cut card cases, but not meant for wholesale distribution). To create the packs, operators filled the appropriate "buckets" of an inserting machine with the cards from the different cut cases (along with gum/promotional offer cards/stickers/etc.).
If that's the case, the blackless sheets were probably grouped together when shipped to Topps... but they could have been cut for different packaging methods.
I have 10 to 12 cards I plan to post in the next couple days that were in my packs. Many of them have major print defects. I went to the LCS to by grading sleeves. Nobody in the shop had heard about the Blackless set. One of them had a theory that is probably how my cards ended up in rack packs. He thought that a garbage pile of misprint cards were gathered up and put into the rack pack line. I have no idea how the process works but it makes sense to me.
An extremely high number of the cards I have had major print defects. Most of them had unaligned black printing but each boarder color also has unique types of errors. I'll post scans as soon as I have time.
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I bought 8 packs from RookieWax. It’s claimed these packs contain Blackless cards. I wanted a large enough sample size to pull one of the 13 blackless. Fuzzy math, but I think 8 packs give me a 92ish percent chance of pulling one. Something less of pulling two.
I randomly picked the serial numbers from all 33 available packs.
In the next week I’m going to start a new CU thread (so I don’t jam this one up) to get opinions on how to open these packs. I’m planning on them all at once. On some sort of “live” stream.
I’m open for suggestions. Watch for the new thread.
Good luck. Let me know when you plan to open them. My cards came in bunches so if you hit one you may get more.
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I bought 8 packs from RookieWax. It’s claimed these packs contain Blackless cards. I wanted a large enough sample size to pull one of the 13 blackless. Fuzzy math, but I think 8 packs give me a 92ish percent chance of pulling one. Something less of pulling two.
I randomly picked the serial numbers from all 33 available packs.
In the next week I’m going to start a new CU thread (so I don’t jam this one up) to get opinions on how to open these packs. I’m planning on them all at once. On some sort of “live” stream.
I’m open for suggestions. Watch for the new thread.
Good luck. Let me know when you plan to open them. My cards came in bunches so if you hit one you may get more.
Since there are so few first hand accounts of NNOF and blackless pulls, it's a common mistake for those who have found them to extrapolate their results out to the whole sample. I don't mean this in a negative way, it is just human nature. If you take a look back through the thread and you take all the first hand accounts described on message boards, Ebay and twitter threads, a common thread emerges.
Predominantly found in wax. Yours is the only one I'm aware of that has not come from wax.
Mixed print runs in large samples of packs. From what we know from the one person who had a case of these, to lots I have bought online, as well as first hand pulls from wax, I have found evidence of cards mixed in from at least three distinct print runs finding their way into samples of 1-3 wax boxes.
Unusual breaks from common collation. I have found that among the error packs, there is a collation sequence that contains Nolan Ryan, John Hart, Cory Snyder, Mike Krukow, Glenn Davis, and Clint Zavaras from the Orange/Red/Green sheet side of the pack. The Nolan Ryan and John Hart give you immediate clues as to which print run you are pulling from. I have found a pack with the Nolan Ryan faded blue stripe (from the faded partial blackless print run with only a partially affected Frank Thomas and Lawton, among others) and a normal John Hart. Then come across a pack with a full blue print line (regular partial blackless run) and normal John Hart (where theoretically a blackless John Hart should be), and then a third pack with a full blue print line on the Nolan Ryan, but no John Hart card at all, as if quality control had pulled the card and thrown it into a pile of rejects.
@baz518 said:
Love this thread, always enjoy seeing new info added. Hopefully I didn't miss what I'm about to ask, but is anyone aware of Topps' process between cutting and inserting?
I always thought they printed full 264 card sheets off site and (possibly cut down to 132 card half sheets before) sending to Topps/OPC. At that point, Topps comingled and cut (Topps used blades, OPC used wires) the sheets for the different distribution methods... hence the different collation patterns for wax/cello vs racks vs vending. Once cut, the cards were put into cases and queued up for inserting (just like cut card cases, but not meant for wholesale distribution). To create the packs, operators filled the appropriate "buckets" of an inserting machine with the cards from the different cut cases (along with gum/promotional offer cards/stickers/etc.).
If that's the case, the blackless sheets were probably grouped together when shipped to Topps... but they could have been cut for different packaging methods.
You assume correctly. 1990 Topps were printed in Providence RI and then shipped in full or half sheet form to Duryea where the cutting, mixing and packing happened. We know that there were 7 presses running 24 hours a day at the Quebecor plant from an interview with former pressman John Tassonni Jr. That means 7 different sets of printing plates.
The way platemaking worked (the crux of the error formation, unless the error was caused by a damaged rubber blanket), is that Topps shipped the negatives and platemaking materials (photography and necessary graphics and typeset) to Quebecor where Quebecor's workers would create a mask from those negatives. That mask was used to create the plate for each color. As each color had its own dedicated plate, and the black plates for all 6 of each color sheet (A-F) would have all been made in sequence with each other, my theory is that a batch of plates were damaged or exposed and that led to the series of black plate errors we see on the orange sheets, and possibly related errors on the green sheet that I found a few years ago. One theory is that a stray piece of adhesive tape that held the mask in place blocked the negative from being properly exposed onto the plate. The organic shape of the blackless area would support that theory. Or a batch of plates were somehow exposed or damaged in the same area, which would explain why the green sheet blackless errors I found occur on the same location of the uncut sheet as the NNOF and related errors. From what various members with printing experience have said, it is very unlikely that a physical obstruction in the presses would have caused the error for a number of reasons I won't get into here.
Now, they printed off 100 sheets a minute or so (rough guess from a former pressman), and the theory is that at least 1000 orange sheets of NNOF made it to Duryea and were cut up into packs. I believe it is possible that many more were made and thrown out either at Quebecor or Duryea upon discovery. I also believe at least as many partial blackless Frank Thomas (small chunks of black missing out of his name) exist as the NNOF version, based on about a dozen of these surfacing over the years. I have three of them, and have discovered them at a much higher rate searching online than I have the regular blackless cards (only have found the Acker and Hart through online searching).
If you are interested further in the Topps printing process, I have posted a story from 1991 on a thread over at Net54 (the images have been lost to the web but I can reupload them here): https://www.net54baseball.com/showthread.php?t=271009
To add to my previous post, it is important to have a concept of "sample size" when discussing error boxes and packs. Rough estimates that I've pieced together through industry estimates, earnings reports, public information from Upper Deck, insert odds given in later issues of junk wax, put the print run for each card in the 1990 Topps base set at 6-10 million per card. In fact, Topps spokesman Timm Boyle went on record in 1991 during an interview about Topps Desert Shield and stated that Desert Shield was produced at 1/1000 of 1991 Topps print run. Some simple math from the numbers he gave in that interview yielded a print run of 6.8 million per card for 1991 Topps base.
I would estimate 1990 Topps production at slightly higher than that but just assume for a second that the numbers were the same in 1990 and 1000 NNOF cards are out there, that would yield 1 NNOF for every 9000 wax boxes. A pop count of 1000 NNOF distributed perfectly bunched together in wax boxes would mean there were 1400 error boxes out there. (1000 boxes, with 576 cards per box/792 card set = 1000/.73=1400). Now given the error distribution we have seen it is more likely the errors were spread somewhat unevenly with a somewhat equal number of partial blackless and normal cards mixed in to most of the few error boxes we are aware of. So we could be talking about up to 3000 boxes of wax containing some form of error card. If someone has pulled one NNOF from one box, or several errors from 3 boxes as I did then they are likely only talking about less than 1% of the press run of errors. I'll also add that I found a guy on Ebay 5 years ago who opened 10 cases of 1990 Topps, found one NNOF and put it up for sale. Then after I spoke with him, he went back through all 10 cases worth of cards and found 6 more blackless errors. So some of these cards could be very spread out, for reasons I can't explain.
@West22 said:
To add to my previous post, it is important to have a concept of "sample size" when discussing error boxes and packs. Rough estimates that I've pieced together through industry estimates, earnings reports, public information from Upper Deck, insert odds given in later issues of junk wax, put the print run for each card in the 1990 Topps base set at 6-10 million per card. In fact, Topps spokesman Timm Boyle went on record in 1991 during an interview about Topps Desert Shield and stated that Desert Shield was produced at 1/1000 of 1991 Topps print run. Some simple math from the numbers he gave in that interview yielded a print run of 6.8 million per card for 1991 Topps base.
I would estimate 1990 Topps production at slightly higher than that but just assume for a second that the numbers were the same in 1990 and 1000 NNOF cards are out there, that would yield 1 NNOF for every 9000 wax boxes. A pop count of 1000 NNOF distributed perfectly bunched together in wax boxes would mean there were 1400 error boxes out there. (1000 boxes, with 576 cards per box/792 card set = 1000/.73=1400). Now given the error distribution we have seen it is more likely the errors were spread somewhat unevenly with a somewhat equal number of partial blackless and normal cards mixed in to most of the few error boxes we are aware of. So we could be talking about up to 3000 boxes of wax containing some form of error card. If someone has pulled one NNOF from one box, or several errors from 3 boxes as I did then they are likely only talking about less than 1% of the press run of errors. I'll also add that I found a guy on Ebay 5 years ago who opened 10 cases of 1990 Topps, found one NNOF and put it up for sale. Then after I spoke with him, he went back through all 10 cases worth of cards and found 6 more blackless errors. So some of these cards could be very spread out, for reasons I can't explain.
That is great info. I'm starting to suspect that my cards were part of some sort of quality control pull that probably got added back into the assembly line. Maybe they needed a few more sheet to fill out an order or something. I saw a video from Jabs Family on Youtube where he opened a wax box from the 70's that was full of garbage cards. My experience was much like his. I actually ordered a used high resolution scanner off eBay. As soon as that comes in I'll scan some of the error cards I have. About 40% were of what I have would be considered trash back in the day.
Here are some various scans I tried on my phone. The blue errors have lots of scratches that are actually printed onto the card. The red cards seem to show a shift of about a milometer. Almost every purple card I have is blurry and the black seems to be off by about half a milometer. Orange tends to have black smudges around the borders. Green looks to be faded and there was some blotchy areas.
One other weird not is my errors appear in doubles but not more. There are way more doubles than you would expect from such a small sample. I know that these are common but the sheer number was unusual. The scratches are not on the card stock and are printed.
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Without scans it is hard for me to tell what is going on with the orange and green sheet cards. The Worrell error In particular I have found many times on other cards. I’m not sure what causes it but it is a fairly run of the mill error.
If you have a Charlie Liebrandt, Dennis Eckersley, Cory Snyder, Lee Smith, Don Mattingly or the Ripken All Star I would be interested in pics/scans. They all have recurring errors and I am curious if they were present in your print run.
I got on my computer for a better look and I see the Pascual Perez black plate scratch now. I have that exact same error from the packs I mentioned previously. Very cool.
Here's the Ripken and Snyder I have. Unfortunately I don't have the others. I may have the Eckersley and Mattingly in my sleeves somewhere but my wife will lose it if I pull out any more baseball cards. The vast majority of the error cards I have have the same shifted black outlines. They look very blurry and kind of like those old 3D prints they would put on cereal boxes back in the day. I have a Ken Griffey Jr. somewhere with the same defect. That is in my Griffey folder in a random box in the garage.
I found two Billy Hatcher cards with the orange spots extending about an inch into the photo. This looks to be an uncorrected error that Topps never noticed or didn't care to fix.
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Interesting that your Ripken does not have the white “tadpole” in lower left corner. There are definitely several different print runs mixed in to all these error lots.
Thanks for posting! Your wife will get used to it.
@HalfNipponese said:
Here's the Ripken and Snyder I have. Unfortunately I don't have the others. I may have the Eckersley and Mattingly in my sleeves somewhere but my wife will lose it if I pull out any more baseball cards. The vast majority of the error cards I have have the same shifted black outlines. They look very blurry and kind of like those old 3D prints they would put on cereal boxes back in the day. I have a Ken Griffey Jr. somewhere with the same defect. That is in my Griffey folder in a random box in the garage.
I found two Billy Hatcher cards with the orange spots extending about an inch into the photo. This looks to be an uncorrected error that Topps never noticed or didn't care to fix.
As far as I know, all of the Billy Hatcher’s have that, it is part of the wall behind him, not an extension of border pattern.
About 3/4” directly below the white “Topps” logo on the Snyder card is a black slash/dash line about 1/4” long. It is present on his card.
I'll have to check it out under a light. The card is so blurry it's hard for me to tell what is background and what is a printing error.
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Comments
Beckett Card Catalog picked up all the variations here starting with their 2011 annual book.
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Here you go:
"The 1990 Topps Blackless Error"
Finally the great map is complete
saucywombat@hotmail.com
Don't worry about paying too much. I always figure I just paid too soon! Enjoy what you collect
George Brett, Roger Clemens and Tommy Brady.
I believe Darrin Jackson is the subject of a rather interesting variation in the '91 Topps set, as well.
Arthur
Just picked up this “poor man’s” Frank Thomas partial blackless on ebay.
>
Let’s hear it
Interesting thread on Net54 on a big find of these. They were in rack packs...sold in Japan.
https://net54baseball.com/showthread.php?t=286041
__
Here's his listing: https://www.ebay.com/itm/1990-Topps-Partial-Blackless-John-Morris-Error-from-Frank-Thomas-NNOF-Sheet/203047776685
I believe this is the first time since they have been published as errors (2011) that any of these cards has gone to auction on Ebay.
It will be interesting to see the final price.
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This would be the first discovery of blackless pulled from anything other than wax. I suppose anything is possible, but I am skeptical.
George Brett, Roger Clemens and Tommy Brady.
Well in all fairness I have most of them and really have no idea of the exact source. I do remember riding my bike to the Revco nearest my house and hitting the rack packs hard because you got that all star card + you could see at least 5 of the cards you were getting.
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Hello, I am so glad that someone referred me to this site. I've really learned a lot over the past couple of days. Surprisingly I've been getting a lot of origin questions. I can 100% assure everyone that these were pulled from a rack pack. I don't know all the history behind the cards but it's absolutely true. These have been sitting in a shoebox for the last 30 years with a bunch of other random stuff my Mom must have saved for me.
I also mentioned in another post that all of the errors came bunched together. Every 3rd or 4th card was messed up in the packs. I remember the day vividly because at the time I was a pissed off young teenager thinking I got ripped off. My best friend pulled the NNOF Thomas the same day from the same batch. His packs also had a ton of errors in them and they went straight into the garbage can. I have several more cards with weird blue lines running up them.
I watched a few YouTube videos of people pulling just a single NNOF Thomas with no other errors and that was not my experience at all. The rack packs we opened were full of them. There is no way I'm remembering incorrectly because it was the only time I purchased Topps while in Japan. It was super rare for the military bases to have cards for sale. The few other time I was able to buy cards I went with Donruss due to Topps quality control.
Here is a photo of the first 8 I found. Since then I also found a McGriff that I sleeved up 30 years ago because I didn't notice the error at the time. I also found a second Morris that I listed on eBay.
If anyone has any advise on what to do I'd really appreciate it. I almost fell for a scam for several of my cards. The COVID lock down has given me time to rediscover this passion. I've been on a tear buying up rookie cards issued during my 20 year hiatus.
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That is a tremendous find you have there. It certainly will change our understanding of the packout of the blackless cards. Can you share the general area where you purchased the cards? It has been mostly agreed upon that most NNOF Thomas's cake from the north east. Also, so you remember if they were purchased from retail or card shops?
Sorry for all the questions, just trying to fill out the picture
George Brett, Roger Clemens and Tommy Brady.
When I finish work today I'll post a photo of all the cards I found. There are some blue boarder cards that also look very strange and have misprints on them. Could these be garbage packs that Topps sent to other countries to dump bad inventory?
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I'll be more than happy answering any questions anyone may have. These were purchased on Yokota Airbase the first half of 1990. I don't remember the exact time of year but I do know my friends and I were planning on attending the MLB vs. Japanese All Star games in Tokyo. We made the 2 hour trip to the base in hopes of finding cards to get autographed. The cards were sold either in the commissary or exchange. Those are basically the retail stores on the base. Inventory from the stores was imported by AAFES. I'm not sure what that stands for but they ran the stores on the base. I do know that a couple times I ordered cards through the AAFES catalog and they were shipped out of Washington state. I had a strange set of 1990 Hoops cards that were yellow instead of white. That box hasn't been found yet but I have a whole garage full of stuff to look through.
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I was asked about the sample size that produced these cards. I'd guess the box these were in had about 200-250 cards. About 20% of them have some sort of defect. The orange and blue cards seem to have the most. I'm pretty sure the storage order was the same as the day I pulled them. At a minimum it was pretty close. I found 8 of the cards in the last 100 or so I looked at. The Franco and Fisk were back to back. I recall (but not 100% certain) one or two of the rack packs were far more loaded with errors.
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Some great new traction in the thread! Welcome!
I hadn't seen this post...my hobby dream in images right there.
Well I may have even better news. I discovered at least 1 more unreported error from sheet F. I think there are even more but I'm trying to find clean copies to verify. Pictures to follow this evening. Does anyone know how we would get Beckett to validate?
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Not a lot of time to comment here but these are super fun and exciting developments!
What is the latest new discovery? Which player?
Mike Scott has a orange blob on the upper right hand corner. I have 2 and the blob is present on both.
Ozzie Smith has spots by his left leg and a thin black line by his left shoulder. I don't have another copy to compare it to.
Paul Assenmacher name has a missing black spot on the "R" in his last name. I don't have a comparison card.
Mike Fetters has a small white spot in the upper left hand corner. No comparison card.
Sergio Valdez has a couple small circles to the left of his hat. I have 2 and the error is present on both.
The Ozzie has me the most intrigued.
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I just noticed this thread is 11 years old. You guys are dedicated.
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Please excuse the photo quality. Kids, a dog and poor lighting conditions made it difficult. You guys be the judge. Am I seeing what I want to see or are these true "Blackless" errors? I'm only semi-confident in the Assenmacher.
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Based on the pictures the spots are all "fisheye" type errors and fairly standard variations. The Scott is somewhat atypical in that it is large but same idea. Lines could be part of the production process or scratches. These cards would not be considered part of the blackless error.
Congratulations on your find though. Wow. Really a world class haul. Needle in haystack does not begin to describe the rarity of your stash. Great story as well.
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Thanks! The search is officially over. I found a second McGriff in my sleeved cards but my wife and I decided to leave any further finds for my kids when they grow up. When they start their families in 20 years, I'd like to send them on a treasure hunt. Maybe there's another All-Star card waiting to be found.
Ten of the 11 cards I have will be sent off for grading this weekend. I'm going to sacrifice my duplicate Morris to pay for the extremely expensive grading. When they get back I'll post one last pic before stashing 9 away. I'll keep 1 Crime Dog available to sell when he gets into the HOF. I'd love to build awareness of the legendary 1990 Topps "Blackless" set and see values take off. Thank you everyone for the help. Thank you Ross for creating this treasure map.
I had to post a pic of this last card. It's giving me the creeps and I look forward the my future nightmares. It looks like someone cut off Lee Mazzilli's face and wore it like a mask for this card.
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If anyone would like to discuss a possible fall auction with a east coast action house please PM me. I don't know if this is going to happen but I advised the director of acquisitions it would be a cool idea. It was offered to me for my find. Someone should really do a documentary about all the effort everyone here has put in over the years. You guys have collectively put together the greatest modern day treasure map the in the hobby.
Update: For those watching my Morris auction I want to apologize. I am temporarily pulling down the card so it can be graded and authenticated with it's sister cards. If you bid I'm very sorry. I will be notifying the high bidder when the card is relisted by either myself or an auction house.
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Awesome collection- congrats on your grades! I am def. jealous haha!
Hey all- super excited to see that this particular thread is full of newer finds and discussion. I figured I would pop back on when I saw the recent listing on eBay for the Morris. I wanted to bid. Totally understand if the seller wants to wait and see exactly what he has. Congrats on finding the recent stash- some cool stuff! I am interested in any of these cards if folks are willing to part. Thanks
Glad to see this is still a strong thread! Heres my finds....anyone know about this type of error? "Yellowless"
None of these cards have any relation to the NNOF/blackless cards discussed in this thread.
Each of those cards you have posted is a type of offset print flaw where, in this case)l, the yellow plate was misaligned with the others. Since the yellow is so apparent, calling them “yellowless” can be ruled out. These are a very common type of print flaw and affect all cards in the run and in each of the colors used in their production.
So I made a rather strange observation while trying to find out more value info. When I posted the map I noticed I found every card for rows 1, 2 and 4 but not a thing from row 3. Now my friend DID pull the Frank Thomas. I'm remembering us finding all our errors in 3 or 4 packs. If my theory is correct, the Thomas will be accompanied by row 3 cards.
Assuming the information above, I found my errors with doubles. My friend only found one of the Thomas cards. Even if only 2 sheets of the cards made it into the rack pack line, there is at least one more Thomas that was discovered in a rack pack. There is a good chance that Thomas card is still in Japan or was at least purchased there. Plus, it means my friend may have the row 3 cards I'm missing. But this is all crazy talk.
What if the 3rd row theory is true.? That means all legitimate multi pack breaks where a Thomas is discovered should be accompanied with other 3rd row errors. It will help legitimize future pulls of Thomas cards.
Does anyone know someone who found a Thomas by breaking multiple packs?
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Your theory may be true for your specific scenario - finding the NNOF in Rak Paks, but you are literally the only person we have ever found who has done it.
I’ve been watching the evidence for the past 8 years and keeping tabs on unopened supply of 1990 Topps. The number of sealed cases coming up for sale has steadily decreased, and the price has gone up. I don’t know how, but Probstein just managed to sell a normal sealed wax case for $1600. Most of them still seem to go for $400-500 (the cost of shipping these has doubled or tripled in the last few years) But you used to be able to get them for $200 pretty regularly.
Given this, I believe it is possible, even likely that another NNOF or trove of blackless cards are sitting in a pack somewhere but the odds are very steep. It’s exponentially more likely that the next find of blackless 1990 Topps is buried in someone’s collection that somebody’s mom is about to throw out. Your story is truly incredible and one of a kind. I was just mentioning recently that I hoped the recent uptick in collecting interest during quarantine inspired someone to go through their ‘90 Topps cards and unearth some of these beauties. I never expected it would result in a unique find like this. Congratulations on your cards and please stick around and let us know how the grades come in. Also, please continue to post scans (not pics, if you can manage, you can scan from your phone in the “Notes” app, super easy to do) of any oddities you come across. I will post a more comprehensive list soon, but I would be interested to see scans of all your blue line cards, as I have most of them and would like to compare. Also, if you have the Cal Ripken All star card, there should be an unusual white tadpole in the bottom left area by his leg in the black background.
Thanks West22! I'm learning something new every day. I was going to go buy a flat bed scanner this weekend. When I'm packing the cards up I'll get some scans of each individual card and some of the other F Sheet misprints. Boy have home office supplies become expensive.
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Just going over my cards one last time. I’ll sleeve up the cards with printing errors. The stack to the left have significant errors that are pretty noticeable. The right are just normal cards.
Such a shame that a lot are beat up from floating around in the shoebox.
If anyone would like some of the common errors, DM me your mailing address and I'll send them next week. Each boarder color is more prevalent with different types of errors. I know they're worthless but it's interesting to see how each color plate seemed to produce different issues.
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edit coming
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Love this thread, always enjoy seeing new info added. Hopefully I didn't miss what I'm about to ask, but is anyone aware of Topps' process between cutting and inserting?
I always thought they printed full 264 card sheets off site and (possibly cut down to 132 card half sheets before) sending to Topps/OPC. At that point, Topps comingled and cut (Topps used blades, OPC used wires) the sheets for the different distribution methods... hence the different collation patterns for wax/cello vs racks vs vending. Once cut, the cards were put into cases and queued up for inserting (just like cut card cases, but not meant for wholesale distribution). To create the packs, operators filled the appropriate "buckets" of an inserting machine with the cards from the different cut cases (along with gum/promotional offer cards/stickers/etc.).
If that's the case, the blackless sheets were probably grouped together when shipped to Topps... but they could have been cut for different packaging methods.
Interesting, and a timely comment.
I bought 8 packs from RookieWax. It’s claimed these packs contain Blackless cards. I wanted a large enough sample size to pull one of the 13 blackless. Fuzzy math, but I think 8 packs give me a 92ish percent chance of pulling one. Something less of pulling two.
I randomly picked the serial numbers from all 33 available packs.
In the next week I’m going to start a new CU thread (so I don’t jam this one up) to get opinions on how to open these packs. I’m planning on them all at once. On some sort of “live” stream.
I’m open for suggestions. Watch for the new thread.
I have 10 to 12 cards I plan to post in the next couple days that were in my packs. Many of them have major print defects. I went to the LCS to by grading sleeves. Nobody in the shop had heard about the Blackless set. One of them had a theory that is probably how my cards ended up in rack packs. He thought that a garbage pile of misprint cards were gathered up and put into the rack pack line. I have no idea how the process works but it makes sense to me.
An extremely high number of the cards I have had major print defects. Most of them had unaligned black printing but each boarder color also has unique types of errors. I'll post scans as soon as I have time.
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Good luck. Let me know when you plan to open them. My cards came in bunches so if you hit one you may get more.
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Since there are so few first hand accounts of NNOF and blackless pulls, it's a common mistake for those who have found them to extrapolate their results out to the whole sample. I don't mean this in a negative way, it is just human nature. If you take a look back through the thread and you take all the first hand accounts described on message boards, Ebay and twitter threads, a common thread emerges.
You assume correctly. 1990 Topps were printed in Providence RI and then shipped in full or half sheet form to Duryea where the cutting, mixing and packing happened. We know that there were 7 presses running 24 hours a day at the Quebecor plant from an interview with former pressman John Tassonni Jr. That means 7 different sets of printing plates.
The way platemaking worked (the crux of the error formation, unless the error was caused by a damaged rubber blanket), is that Topps shipped the negatives and platemaking materials (photography and necessary graphics and typeset) to Quebecor where Quebecor's workers would create a mask from those negatives. That mask was used to create the plate for each color. As each color had its own dedicated plate, and the black plates for all 6 of each color sheet (A-F) would have all been made in sequence with each other, my theory is that a batch of plates were damaged or exposed and that led to the series of black plate errors we see on the orange sheets, and possibly related errors on the green sheet that I found a few years ago. One theory is that a stray piece of adhesive tape that held the mask in place blocked the negative from being properly exposed onto the plate. The organic shape of the blackless area would support that theory. Or a batch of plates were somehow exposed or damaged in the same area, which would explain why the green sheet blackless errors I found occur on the same location of the uncut sheet as the NNOF and related errors. From what various members with printing experience have said, it is very unlikely that a physical obstruction in the presses would have caused the error for a number of reasons I won't get into here.
Now, they printed off 100 sheets a minute or so (rough guess from a former pressman), and the theory is that at least 1000 orange sheets of NNOF made it to Duryea and were cut up into packs. I believe it is possible that many more were made and thrown out either at Quebecor or Duryea upon discovery. I also believe at least as many partial blackless Frank Thomas (small chunks of black missing out of his name) exist as the NNOF version, based on about a dozen of these surfacing over the years. I have three of them, and have discovered them at a much higher rate searching online than I have the regular blackless cards (only have found the Acker and Hart through online searching).
If you are interested further in the Topps printing process, I have posted a story from 1991 on a thread over at Net54 (the images have been lost to the web but I can reupload them here):
https://www.net54baseball.com/showthread.php?t=271009
More reading:
https://www.net54baseball.com/showthread.php?t=282238
To add to my previous post, it is important to have a concept of "sample size" when discussing error boxes and packs. Rough estimates that I've pieced together through industry estimates, earnings reports, public information from Upper Deck, insert odds given in later issues of junk wax, put the print run for each card in the 1990 Topps base set at 6-10 million per card. In fact, Topps spokesman Timm Boyle went on record in 1991 during an interview about Topps Desert Shield and stated that Desert Shield was produced at 1/1000 of 1991 Topps print run. Some simple math from the numbers he gave in that interview yielded a print run of 6.8 million per card for 1991 Topps base.
I would estimate 1990 Topps production at slightly higher than that but just assume for a second that the numbers were the same in 1990 and 1000 NNOF cards are out there, that would yield 1 NNOF for every 9000 wax boxes. A pop count of 1000 NNOF distributed perfectly bunched together in wax boxes would mean there were 1400 error boxes out there. (1000 boxes, with 576 cards per box/792 card set = 1000/.73=1400). Now given the error distribution we have seen it is more likely the errors were spread somewhat unevenly with a somewhat equal number of partial blackless and normal cards mixed in to most of the few error boxes we are aware of. So we could be talking about up to 3000 boxes of wax containing some form of error card. If someone has pulled one NNOF from one box, or several errors from 3 boxes as I did then they are likely only talking about less than 1% of the press run of errors. I'll also add that I found a guy on Ebay 5 years ago who opened 10 cases of 1990 Topps, found one NNOF and put it up for sale. Then after I spoke with him, he went back through all 10 cases worth of cards and found 6 more blackless errors. So some of these cards could be very spread out, for reasons I can't explain.
That is great info. I'm starting to suspect that my cards were part of some sort of quality control pull that probably got added back into the assembly line. Maybe they needed a few more sheet to fill out an order or something. I saw a video from Jabs Family on Youtube where he opened a wax box from the 70's that was full of garbage cards. My experience was much like his. I actually ordered a used high resolution scanner off eBay. As soon as that comes in I'll scan some of the error cards I have. About 40% were of what I have would be considered trash back in the day.
Here are some various scans I tried on my phone. The blue errors have lots of scratches that are actually printed onto the card. The red cards seem to show a shift of about a milometer. Almost every purple card I have is blurry and the black seems to be off by about half a milometer. Orange tends to have black smudges around the borders. Green looks to be faded and there was some blotchy areas.
One other weird not is my errors appear in doubles but not more. There are way more doubles than you would expect from such a small sample. I know that these are common but the sheer number was unusual. The scratches are not on the card stock and are printed.
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Without scans it is hard for me to tell what is going on with the orange and green sheet cards. The Worrell error In particular I have found many times on other cards. I’m not sure what causes it but it is a fairly run of the mill error.
If you have a Charlie Liebrandt, Dennis Eckersley, Cory Snyder, Lee Smith, Don Mattingly or the Ripken All Star I would be interested in pics/scans. They all have recurring errors and I am curious if they were present in your print run.
I got on my computer for a better look and I see the Pascual Perez black plate scratch now. I have that exact same error from the packs I mentioned previously. Very cool.
Here's the Ripken and Snyder I have. Unfortunately I don't have the others. I may have the Eckersley and Mattingly in my sleeves somewhere but my wife will lose it if I pull out any more baseball cards. The vast majority of the error cards I have have the same shifted black outlines. They look very blurry and kind of like those old 3D prints they would put on cereal boxes back in the day. I have a Ken Griffey Jr. somewhere with the same defect. That is in my Griffey folder in a random box in the garage.
I found two Billy Hatcher cards with the orange spots extending about an inch into the photo. This looks to be an uncorrected error that Topps never noticed or didn't care to fix.
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I never noticed that with the Hatcher!
Interesting that your Ripken does not have the white “tadpole” in lower left corner. There are definitely several different print runs mixed in to all these error lots.
Thanks for posting! Your wife will get used to it.
As far as I know, all of the Billy Hatcher’s have that, it is part of the wall behind him, not an extension of border pattern.
Also, what am I looking at with the Cory Snyder?
About 3/4” directly below the white “Topps” logo on the Snyder card is a black slash/dash line about 1/4” long. It is present on his card.
I'll have to check it out under a light. The card is so blurry it's hard for me to tell what is background and what is a printing error.
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