quote:

Originally posted by catskilleagle:
Wow, great stuff. I pick up errors, promos, and other pre-production stuff as part of my interest in oddball cards in general. I have an oddball W3 from the 3-card "wood" chase set from the "Hershey's Trading Cards: The Collector's Series" (Dart Flipcards, 1995) that was offered on Ebay a couple of years ago. It's the card with an outlined blank space where artwork from an old Hershey's ad was going to be applied later. Most people want to know why I would pay anything for that, but yeah, it's an otherwise unseen peek into the card-making process.

quote:

Originally posted by catskilleagle:
Wolverine 651,

In reference to your mention of color variations among copies of the same single on Blowout (why they happen), I'm pretty sure it's the result of a particular color running out on the printer with a default to another shade of that color. I'd seen cards like that before but didn't make that connection until printing a photo in which what was supposed to be green grass came out as a blue-green instead. Back in the late 90's, I used to buy a good number of Tomorrowland (1997) promos from a dealer who specialized in Disneyland giveaways/exclusives. Here's a pair of Tomorrowland promos that shows the color variation (lighter blue background in part and purple background in the lower right corner) next to the the more uniform blue color that the cards almost always show. I've seen a couple of other similar examples offered on Ebay since then.

quote:

Originally posted by dpolis:
I’ve seen a lot of Star Wars finest refractor cards with no gold on the back. Obviously they ran out of gold ink. Back then I was wondering if I should try a set of no gold cards, but decided not to. I didn’t know how many uncut sheets were missing the gold ink, so I didn’t bother collecting them.
David

quote:

There is a situation sort of like this in marvel- 1990 Marvel universe holos exist in upside down backs- the MH5 Spidey vs Goblin has it and it’s not super hard to find. It also exists in the Magneto MH2 but much scarcer. I am not sure about the other 3 (1990MU holos were not printed together on an uncut sheet, it was a sheet for each one separately..so an error won’t necessarily affect the whole set).

Yeah I agree, I’m not into the minor stuff like slight miscuts (where a sliver of next card is showing) or crimp errors. Needs to be more egregious. One might ask where is the dividing line between just a very off-center card and a miscut error worthy of attention. Subjective…but for me there needs to be a sizable portion of the next card over on the sheet to make it an interesting error. Like this.







I mentioned above about selling a 1992MU Hulk error holo for around $200ish. I really regret selling that card. It’s probably the most confusing/crazy error I’ve ever seen on a card, a hologram no less. Not even sure what’s going on with it, but looks like stacked card on top of another in the process of creating the holo (this is not actually stacked cards..it’s one single card). I wish I had this one back..

quote:

Originally posted by promoking:
Keep these pics coming please. They're awesome.

quote:

Originally posted by catskilleagle:
That Marvel Masterpieces 1994 card with the foil stamp across the borders of the miscut cards is really cool especially since it also catches the Hildebrandt brothers signature on it

quote:

Originally posted by wolverine651:

quote:

Originally posted by JOHN LEVITT:
Are all these error cards caused by a human messing up in the print room or could they be purposely created by someone in the print room or a mixture of both?

I ask only because many years ago in the Model Car Collecting World Matchbox Cars made by Lesney in their Hackney factory often featured variant models with different coloured seats, wheels etc. and the same thing happened with Days Gone Models made by Lledo in their Enfield factory. In both companies these errors were caused by someone picking up the wrong box of component stock to supply the women who built the models. As these workers were employed on piece work time was of the essence when restocking and these problems usually occurred when similar components but in different colours were being used at the same time. Having visited the Lledo Factory at Enfield I saw for myself how the potential errors could be made. It was also rumoured that at the Lesney Factory some variants were created purposely with or without management knowledge. When I lived in East London during the 1960's a lady at the end of the road often on a Friday afternoon gave us children many matchbox models not in their boxes as these were the wrong models. She was employed at the factory and unwanted stock was disposed of in that fashion rather than recycling.

regards

John

Interesting question. Frankly if errors were created on purpose, they lose some of their charm for me. An example of this- recently in some sports sets Topps created a “NNOF” parallel variant, calling back to the famous 1990 Topps Frank Thomas NNOF error (without the player name). But there is nothing organic about that at all, it may as well be another manufactured scarcity parallel. Has a sense of artificial-ness.

I would like to think (and I do think) most of these 90s misprints arose from mistakes. As can be seen above, most arise from having an uncut sheet facing the wrong way when printing, or not applying foil to a sheet, or in rare cases not applying the print layer to a sheet (but still applying the foil). It seems Fleer/Skybox in particular had a decent amount of these misprints going on, but still minuscule compared to the large print runs. These 90s print runs were massive, so anyone who’s worked in a printing factory probably can vouch that a few sheets across the run are bound to have some mistakes. The interesting thing is not only did some mistakes happen but they also got through any sort of quality control measures..they are quite rare and basically needles in a haystack.

Now is it possible a joker in the factory during production messed up a few sheets on purpose for gags, or figured a collectible thing could result from it- we can’t rule it out. I would lean towards they were actual mistakes, but we can’t know for sure. All I know is I’m glad it did happen, as it gives error people like me more things to collect. There do exist errors in modern marvel sets as well (2007-present), but the 90s era seemed to have more.

quote:

I think many probably wonder why the above has any collectible value at all, and it’s a fair question. There are answers to that which would go into a whole discussion and tangent.

quote:

Originally posted by wolverine651:

quote:

Originally posted by promoking:

quote:

I think many probably wonder why the above has any collectible value at all, and it’s a fair question. There are answers to that which would go into a whole discussion and tangent.

And I thought collecting promos was challenging. You have chosen to explore the most arduous and unique aspect of collecting non-sport cards-errors. I believe that these pieces will increase in value and collectability, especially in the eyes of those who must have every card, promo, variant, and now error card that exists for a particular theme or card series. Great finds and super dedication.

Agree whole-heartedly. Right now the market for errors is, let’s just say…very niche. They may be super rare but the demand isn’t usually that high. But there is something about a rare error that is grabbing, in a way that a modern manufactured scarcity parallel is not. And I think you’re right, the master set collectors may turn to them in time, after they exhaust everything else.

As the years go on in collecting non-sports, I find myself gravitating towards 3 things the most- promos, error cards, and uncut sheets. There is no right way to collect and everyone is different. I just enjoy those things these days, probably since they’re an extension of master set collecting, and the challenge they provide is part of the fun. The errors and sheets are a sort of link to the printing aspect of the sets, and promos are plain neat being part of the sets’ background and not inserted into packs with the rest of the cards- and can be quite challenging.

One more thing on errors- while they appear mysterious and flukish at first glance- they are almost always easily explained by the uncut sheet, and in fact quite predictable. For example we can predict the other 1995 Masterpieces Canvas wrong back errors that must exist out there (an Iceman with a Psylocke back for example), by glancing at the sheet. Another useful fact is errors always affect entire uncut sheets. So if you observe an error in a certain set or insert set…the rest of the set will exist in that error also (as long as all on that sheet). As one example- the Spider-Man vs Venom double printed back-on-front error above from 1992 Marvel Masterpieces- that error should also exist on the other 4 in the battle set (finding them is another story though). Uncut sheets and errors are quite linked to each other, in this sense.