Sharing some pics of recently graded 1990 Topps Partially Blackless

RookieWax

Thought others might enjoy seeing several together...as they are seldom seen anywhere.

Bosox1976

Nice run! The old thread was always fun -- nice to see these.

vandweller

Had no idea about these. Very cool. Is there a checklist? Did the error affect only certain sheets? And most importantly, is there a Dwight Evans? :-)

craig44

Those are awesome. I am obsessed with the thomas, and love the original thread. All time best thread on CU. Are any of those for sale?

craig44

It must have been surreal to open that case you had. How many Thomas's did you get again?

RookieWax

No Dwight Evans. Here is the list as compiled in the old thread:

Kevin Tapani
Marcus Lawton
Fred McGriff AllStar
Julio Franco AllStar
Jeff Russell AllStar
Carlton Fisk AllStar
Joe Magrane AllStar
Craig Biggio AllStar
John Morris
Darrin Jackson
Jim Acker
John Hart
....and of course, the NNOF Frank Thomas

RookieWax

None are for sale at this time. I did sell a Lawton card a while ago....only because I needed the money. It sold for around $1000.

I pulled 4 NNOF Thomas cards from the case back in 2008...then pulled another from a regular wax box about 3 years ago.

craig44

Rookiewax, do you find that all the blackless cards have the same top/bottom centering issue? I have two nnof Thomas's and they both have the same approx 70/30 centering top to bottom. Every other thomas I have seen has the same centering. I noticed that all of the backless shown above exhibit the same. Do all the other ones you pulled have the same? I love these cards and the story behind them. I think the thomas nnof is a hugely underrated card. An iconic error of a hof player in EXTREMELY limited numbers. I think that one is primed to take off with the current run on hof rookies. I noticed there are two recently listed on ebay for $20,000 and $15000. Love talking some 90 topps blackless

RookieWax

Yes, all of my NNOF Thomas cards have that same vertical centering. There was obviously a very short run of those error sheets, so you would expect them to have generally the same centering.

The other thing I found is that the error sheets all had unusual slanted, light blue print lines. You can see it if you look closely at the Tapani cards above. I have a Nolan Ryan and several other cards with that same line that were pulled from the error packs.

craig44

I never knew that about the print lines. Have you seen it on any others. I don't think I have seen it on either of my nnof, but that is a really small sample size.

RookieWax

The blue print line only shows up on certain cards on the sheet (cards that happen to fall on the slanted line)...the Thomas card wasn't one of them.

Sometimes those print lines show up vividly and other times very faintly. Here is a good example:

craig44

That is awesome. Now I have to go digging through a 5000 count box!! I notice the blue streak is on Orange border cards. Do you think it was an artifact from the rare nnof sheets only, or, was it evident on the entire print run? Almost like a poor man's blackless set.

RookieWax

That blue line wasn't on any other sheet cards I pulled from the error packs...just the orange sheet with the Frank Thomas. I think it is awfully strange that such unusual print lines just happen to occur on the blackless error sheets. I suppose it could possibly be related to whatever mishap took place at the time the errors were printed. Perhaps they were trying to fix the blue line issue and that lead to the blackless issue?

BunchOBull

There are two "versions" of the NNOF as well, if you include variations in blue ink. One with a fish eye in the blue, one without.

BunchOBull

When I sent my few copies in, they forgot to label them as partial blackless. I haven't had the heart to put them back in the mail.

craig44

I didn't know that about the two versions of the nnof. Bull, do you have copies of each, or pics/better descriptions of each? I would like to check mine to see which I have Always like to learn more about this iconic error. Thanks for posting more pics of blackless too

bishop

Thanks for posting. Was unaware of the blue line variants

BunchOBull

It's fairly insignificant, but a small number of NNOF can be found with a fisheye just to the left of where the F in Frank would be.

bishop

Other 1990 Topps Oddball--Golden Spike and Mylar Stickers

RookieWax

Originally posted by: BunchOBull
When I sent my few copies in, they forgot to label them as partial blackless. I haven't had the heart to put them back in the mail.

Same thing happened to me about a year ago with a Jeff Russell I sent in. Now that several have been graded, I think they are more aware of the errors.

craig44

I see it now bull. I wonder what percentage of nnof have it? If you have more than one, what % of yours have it? Neither of mine do. It would be interesting to have a survey of as many nnof Thomas's as could be located and see the percentage of variations. I also have never seen the Mylar stickers. Is there a version of every card? How were they distributed?

saucywombat

Mine has the fish eye

cardshark0131

@saucywombat said:
Mine has the fish eye

(Image)

Can you see thru them if you hold it up to a light?

cardshark0131

@saucywombat said:
Mine has the fish eye

(Image)

If you hold yous up to a bright light, like all Tiffany's and such, can you see thru beacuse there wasnt a final layer added? Just curious...thank you...

cardshark0131

cardshark0131

@saucywombat said:
Mine has the fish eye

(Image)

PARTIAL Blackless Thomas! 2 breaks in the top black line.....I'll put scans when it arrives...