September 20, 2008

More Miscuts

A few weeks ago, Reader Scott sent me a great big stack of blank-fronts, blank-backs, wrong-backs, misprints, and miscuts. To celebrate, I've put them with my other screwups in a binder.

The most interesting thing, besides the sheer quantity of screwups Scott sent, is that the blank-fronts he sent were broken down like so: 22 from 1989 Topps; 19 from 1990 Topps; and 14 from 1991 Topps. OK, that's a lot from each of those years. But here's where it gets crazy and leads me to put out a somewhat far-fetched conspiracy theory: the checklist numbers of the cards are grouped. For instance, here are the card numbers for the 1989 group:

237
246
681
685
686
690
691
692
694
697
702
703
716
717
718
722
723
757
783
788
789
792

So, that's like four separate checklist groups (and yes, I think it's awesome that #792 was included in the stack). And the same sort of breakdown is true for the 1990 and 1991 groups, respectively. It leads me to believe that there was at least one entire set from 1989, 1990, and 1991 (if not other years as well) printed as blank-fronts.

In other miscut news: I've been going through boxes, putting together the 1976 set (still need about 150 cards), and in the stacks of commons I've found miscut wrong-backs: Dick Drago (Wilbur Howard/Dave Parker) and Bill North (Father/Son Hegan/Father/Son Smalley).

Also, I offer no explanation on the double-prints, except to say that they may be the coolest cards I've ever seen. And yes, they're blank-backed.

Thanks Scott, you've totally made my year!

2 comments:

SJ said...

If you think those '92s are good. I have an Andres Galarraga Bowman with two football fronts overprinted but without names. One football player on each side. then Galarraga under the Rams player. Really, really odd.

(Another) Scott

robbyt said...

I work in the printing business, and those are called "made-readies." A lot of times printing companies will re-use a press sheet to have something to run through the press while they get the sheet positioned right as well as to get their inks up. It's hilarious that these were actually released, as any printing company makes sure that these are destroyed to keep stuff like this from being released. Topps being who they are, I'm not surprised, but any other company who would let stuff like this get out the door would fire the individuals involved.