I've always thought that errors were unintentional (their getting made and their getting into the packs) all the time until maybe the late 90's when a company or two realized that it was better for them to keep collectors buying packs/boxes after they'd completed their sets. With all the superproduction of the early-mid 90's, errors were bound to occur and get into packs but maybe a few manufacturers decided to see if anyone would later notice a little too much foil or a color a few shades lighter/darker or maybe they just let the sheets go and get cut to meet the deadline.

I’d be curious, do we know which companies in the late 90s intentionally made misprints, and is there evidence of that? I certainly won’t say it’s impossible. Usually when a company does this sort of thing, it’s like the Topps example from baseball I mentioned- they made an “NNOF” variant of the Draft Picks in 2015 Archives, but it’s very clear here it is a planned parallel and intentional ‘error’ (not really an error at all). Sorry to post a sports card, but to show an example:



As for 90s Fleer/Skybox marvel like the above, it’s a bit of an Occam’s razor thing for me…the simplest explanation is probably just factory mistakes that got through. I imagine QC with the huge print runs was taking random samplings and the affected error sheets could have just not been in an analyzed sample.

Without something like testimony from an ex-Fleer/printing factory employee saying they intentionally made errors, there would be no way to know for sure…but some of the reasons pointing to probably accidents would be 1)the types of errors (which tend to arise from innocent mistakes), 2)the large print runs meaning some errors probably happened, 3)I imagine a factory worker (these sets were usually contracted out to print) just wants to get the job done correctly, very possibly not interested in the cards themselves or making a rare collectible or whatever- simply in the business of printing cards. Sure it’s possible Fleer/Skybox dictated a few sheets in the run be messed up, but goes back to Occams Razor, what’s more likely and the simpler explanation.

There is something in history scholarship called the Criterion of Embarrassment (loosely- that in say an ancient text, something written that is embarrassing/negative for the author increases its chances to be true since why would they deliberately write something false that reflects badly on them). While not the same here, it’s almost an analogous situation- you’d think Fleer/Skybox (or the factory) wouldn’t want ugly misprints to get out since it reflects badly on them- embarrassing to them, so why intentionally do it. Also of note: back in the 90s when these came out, it’s possible people didn’t realize such errors would have collectible value as many are starting to realize more over the last couple decades. At the time, if people didn’t outright toss them from annoyance of getting a “messed up card” (they want a regular looking one for their set!)..or they may have held them as a curiosity and not much more. So a company at the time wouldn’t even necessarily think a misprint would end up as some big collectible thing.

Long story short, I guess we dont know for sure. But I’d lean toward the above are more than likely just accidents. An argument could be made it doesn’t make a big difference at all whether Fleer purposely did a sheet of inverted wrong foil names for 93 Masterpieces base cards, or it happened by accident. In either case, it’s an inverted wrong foil name 93MM card, which is inherently interesting, and a needle in haystack. I’m not quite sure where I stand on that- I do think it would lose the charm of being an accident, but still something that stands out and can be added to a master set. (I would contrast a solo factory worker purposely having a wrong sheet get through to a pre-planned, announced “error” set such as Topps did in 2015 Archives at least). Anyway.. interesting question to ponder!

Here's another foil stamp error, promo card 4 of 5 from another set (The Bob Marley Legend) and company (Island Vibes) from 1995. The one on the left has the gold foil stamp and the one on the right has just an orange logo that appears to have been the target for the stamp but it didn't get the stamp. I haven't seen one of these in person.

Nice one! Yea looks like a bona fide no-foil error.

I don't have a card but found a note I made about some Skybox Lion King cards have NBA basketball backs.

quote:

Originally posted by catskilleagle:
I don't have a card but found a note I made about some Skybox Lion King cards have NBA basketball backs.

This sounds very similar to the 94 Marvel Masterpieces / 94 Hoops example. I looked up the skybox Lion King set and it’s also 1994. Was the basketball set NBA Hoops?

Sounds like Fleer/Skybox was mixing around a few uncut sheets of different sets when printing the fronts vs backs that year.

All I read was that they were NBA basketball - no actual set title provided. Maybe someone reading this with a card or two will add a comment.

I just re-read this whole thread. It started with Raven saying that error cards aren't error cards if they don't have a corrected counterpart. I understand that but I like Ed's term, "unreprinted error" in case we really want to get technical. In my view, an uncorrected error card is still an error. Nobody likes a miscut (unparallel edges, a slice of the card before or after) Those weird no-foils and overfoils are so striking some collectors would actually pay up for them or at least grab them if the price isn't too bad.

Here's an error I showed in another thread (Booksmith cards). It looks normal unless you know what Bill Bryson looks like. The photo on the front of the first card is actually Sonny Barger, and to satisfy Raven's definition, there is a corrected card (printed later with a different number) with a photo of Bryson.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: catskilleagle,

Another Booksmith error, card #268. The text from another card was printed on the back. You can see another author's name in there. A corrected card wasn't printed. I assume the error was caught too late to do that so the quick fix was to paste corrected text over the back of many of these. This one didn't get pasted.

Jess

Alas the card collecting world has more cards that have errors in them than you could easily count corrected or not. I have more than one book where some one has taken the trouble to list just the cards that have been corrected with many more omitted, admittedly these are mainly cigarette cards that were issued pre 1939 but they are still cards whatever the year of issue.

regards

John

John,

While there might not be a large market for errors, there does seem to be a slowly growing interest. I don't have a lot of errors but I have picked up a few over the years. I remember buying the "Men in Black" #87 "no pug" card about 25 years ago even though I didn't collect the set. It was only $3-4. It isn't just missing the dog. The background is different.

Anyway, if you have any of those older error cards, you should show at least a sample.

Jess

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Anyone who has collected promos for a while probably has the card on the left. You either pulled it from Hero Magazine, issue #2 (August, 1993) back when it was new or you got it in a trade or you bought as part of a lot later. It's the kind of card you might have at least two of after all these years

Anyway, you got either a red foil bordered card like that one with the issue or a blue foil bordered one. The card on the right is a rare error version. You can see the red foil border was not properly printed - offset from the left and the top - leaving wider borders. Where the foil missed at the top and bottom, you get an idea of what the card looked like before the foil was applied. The back of the error is the same as the regular ones.

What I don't know is if someone pulled this from an issue or maybe someone at Hero saw it and kept it from getting inserted with an issue and then hung onto it as a curiosity.