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'74T Braves "variation" is bolt from blue

I thought I'd share my most recent blog posting for those of you who
like 1970s errors and variations.

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I'm retired from work on the Standard Catalog of Baseball Cards, and even if I wasn't,
I don't think this card would have made the cut into "official variation" status. However,
since there are a lot of collectors who chase this type of thing, and since one of their
number made the effort to alert me to it some two years ago, I think it's worth sharing.

Topps specialist Al Richter of Texas is the collector who brought this visually interesting
printing anomaly to my attention. I've had the scans sitting in one of my folders for a
couple of years now. Al was always generous in sharing the errors, variations and
misprints he discovered, even though he knew that most of them would never
be listed in the "big book."

What it is, is a lightning bolt-looking defect that appears in the sky at the top-right
of the 1974 Atlanta Braves team photo card, #483.

I never knew enough or have forgotten what little I knew about four-color card
printing in the mid-1970s, so I can't hazard a guess as to the physical cause of
the misprint. It seems to me the card started without the bolt, then developed
the defect later on.

A review of 50 1974 Braves team cards for sale on eBay on a recent day showed
that only seven of the cards (14%) have the lightning bolt effect. As might be
expected in a misprint like this, some of the cards show a greater or lesser
severity of the image.

If you're so inclined, and if you hurry, I'm sure you can pick one of the lightning
bolt cards up for the price of a common.

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Comments

  • mcadamsmcadams Posts: 2,611 ✭✭✭
    Very cool, thanks for sharing. In looking at a version with the bolt variation, its very visable. In fact, its so visable and prevelant that I'm surprised this hasn't been better documented until now. I suspect that the 7 out of 50 stat from your looking on Ebay somewhat overstates the availability though. I didn't see that many online and none of my raw at home have this feature. But I did see 1 or 2 on Ebay.

    Thanks!
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