Official Error and Variation Discussion/Reference Thread

1984 Donruss Champions - The Grey back version looks like it might have been a sheet that was rolled up at one time. There is some very light creasing. I got this on ebay a long time ago. Not sure of the origin or if it is even authentic. anyone else have one like it?

Love this thread, though it really has a huge amount of information to sort through. Took some time yesterday to reread it and check for some of the variations mentioned. Found I had two new cards I could add to my Grace checklist. Thanks to all that have contributed here.

1989 Upper Deck, Hologram variations (Words only, and Words with Baseballs)


1992 Topps Kids, one or two asterisks variations


And now I'm on the hunt for 1998 UD Collectors Choice homeplate and diamond shaped holograms.

Hit a Tony Cingrani sepia refractor #76 /75 tonight. Seriously. Posted a dig pic in the box break forum (from the online live break tonight.) Very weird. How could that happen?

bmp1971 said:

Hit a Tony Cingrani sepia refractor #76 /75 tonight. Seriously. Posted a dig pic in the box break forum (from the online live break tonight.) Very weird. How could that happen?

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A topps or topps contractor employee? I bet the foil stamping machine auto increments as long as an employee feeds cards through it, rather than has logic to stop incrementing when the total number is reached (i.e. stops at 75 if the machine is set up to stamp cards numbered to 75).

rsmath said:

A topps or topps contractor employee? I bet the foil stamping machine auto increments as long as an employee feeds cards through it, rather than has logic to stop incrementing when the total number is reached (i.e. stops at 75 if the machine is set up to stamp cards numbered to 75).

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If that were the case, wouldn't there be a whole sheet of error cards #76 /75? There are no others on ebay.

bmp1971 said:

If that were the case, wouldn't there be a whole sheet of error cards #76 /75? There are no others on ebay.

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Looking at a foil stamping machine in videos, it doesn't stamp a sheet of cards, it stamps cards that are already cut to size.

If whoever ran Cingrani cards counted out 76 cards (or failed to realize 75 was coming up and slow down to not go over), while that person or another employee ran jay bruce cards through the foil stamp machine and stopped at 75 or counted out exactly a stack of 75 cards, then jay bruce would not have a card numbered 76/75, while cingrani would.

rsmath said:

Looking at a foil stamping machine in videos, it doesn't stamp a sheet of cards, it stamps cards that are already cut to size.

If whoever ran Cingrani cards counted out 76 cards (or failed to realize 75 was coming up and slow down to not go over), while that person or another employee ran jay bruce cards through the foil stamp machine and stopped at 75 or counted out exactly a stack of 75 cards, then jay bruce would not have a card numbered 76/75, while cingrani would.

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I guess have a true 1/1 then in this error card.

That is very awesome error card in my opinion!

Recent pick up, most would consider it worthless but one man's garbage is another man's gold.

A topps Boggs RC rainbow all in one.

I bought a huge assorted lot on ebay a few days ago, mostly for the 100 or so early 80's TCMA cards. I discovered a whole bunch of obscure variations of what are already obscure cards.

1982 Baseball's Greatest



I think everyone knows these, but there seem to be four different variations of each set: white back with black text; white back with blue text; beige back; and white back with blue text perforated (looks like these were part of a perforated sheet)

1981 TCMA 1959 White Sox

These were made with either blue borders or white borders, and the Luis Aparicio card comes with two different photos:



The various TCMA Playball update sets from the early to mid 80's were supposed to be standard sized with white backs. I've found several that are smaller, the same dimensions are the original Playballs, and these come with both white backs and beige backs:



I can't tell if each card has all variations for each year, or if they even exist for each set.

I think one of the only full sized cards I have seen is Preacher Roe. I have many complete sets in the original PB size, so they are not tough to find.

DeliciousBacon said:

The various TCMA Playball update sets from the early to mid 80's were supposed to be standard sized with white backs. I've found several that are smaller, the same dimensions are the original Playballs, and these come with both white backs and beige backs:

I can't tell if each card has all variations for each year, or if they even exist for each set.

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Just an fyi on the 90 fleer Dave Martinez yellow variation.

I Read in a July '91 magazine that this error had been discovered back then.

I always thought it wasn't known until years after release.

Sent from my HTCONE using Freedom Card Board mobile app

Anyone ever seen a 2002 Fleer Triple Crown card with foil like this? I can't explain it. The base cards were printed with silver foil, and there were red, green and blue parallels, but I don't think ANY were printed with gold foil. Plus, all the other cards were printed with solid letter foil, and this appears to be more of a "drop shadow" effect that would have been printed around inked letters to give it a 3D effect. The foil is shifted much more to the right than normal cards. Very strange - not sure why Fleer would have the foil machine set up like this in the first place, since none of the cards were intended to be printed like that. This was just listed on eBay as a normal base card, so picked it up to have.



Normal base card looks like this:

had not seen this thread here until today , but about 2 weeks ago when googling around for some info on a particular variation , i found the old beckett thread that had been bumped back up recently....i read through all that thread and added a post to it with several items that weren't mentioned in it.....when i get back home tonight , i plan to try to read through this one and see if the items i posted about are already covered here....if i don't see any mention of them here i'll copy what i wrote there to see if i can add anything useful...

read through this thread yesterday (well , i admit i skipped over the old posts that only had broken links or missing pics after a sentence that said something like "i found these" or "is this a variation" with no details available) and i believe that a few of the items i talked about in my reply on the old beckett thread still have not been discussed here so......(since some of those were in direct response to other posts in that thread , i had addressed them with the corresponding post #....i'll leave those in my comments here so if anyone wants to go see more for themselves they can find them)


from post 116 referencing 1991 fleer :

"I found these while going through my 91 fleer Greenwell's...Notice how one has the coloring on the career totals and one is white.Anybody have these from 91?Also check the one on the left at the bottom has 3 periods at the end,the one on the right has only 1 period."

i saw that someone here posted a comment about being able to tell the difference for almost all of them by looking at the biographical data but i think it's even easier than that (at least for all the basic player cards - i haven't taken time to check for the differences on the subset/multiplayer cards yet).......if you look back , you'll notice the each card has a blue line just above the stat category headings .....on one version , the stat category headings begin immediately below the blue bar , while the second version has one extra blank line between the blue line and the stat headings....from my personal experience , i think all individual player cards feature this variation (which i simply refer to as gap before stats or no gap before stats) but i've never taken the time to try to figure out what percentage of cards feature which style....anyone out there ever take time to figure out which (if either) is the more common version and the approximate ratios ?....


from post #283 in reference to the collector's choice stick-ums....

"Has anybody mentioned the numberless '97 UD Collectors Choice?"

i chose to comment on this one since i saw no one else had ever answered the original question.....there are actually 2 separate sets ....all the numbered stick ums (1-30) are the hobby only inserts.....there are 28 un-numbered stick ums which are the retail only inserts ....i don't know how many people wold even consider these are variations since this issue was actually taken care of by beckett several years ago when they added in the retail version as a second complete stand-alone set....



from post #366 (and discussed further in posts #367 , #370 , and #381 ) regarding watermarks on the backs of 1992 donruss....

'1992 Donruss with and without the Donruss "watermark" on the rear. Of the thousands of Donruss cards I've looked at, this Thomas is the only one I've seen without the "watermark." '

the watermarks are found on 1992 and 1993 donruss as well as 1992 leaf....some are very feint but if you hold the card at various angels they can usually be found without much trouble.....i just started looking for similar issues , but so far from my own experience (as well as the follow-up comments already posted) it seems to be a VERY rare occurrence (though i do have almost two more 5000-count boxes i can sift through to check for more).....while sorting my player lots for sale (so far i'm completed players beginning with letters A through P) , i've only found exactly ONE other instance of it thus far and it was not a 1992 donruss card.........mine is a 1993 donruss #553 ken griffey jr....i don't know if it's simply a missed step in the printing process as someone suggested or if it a legit variation , but in either case , if they are as rare as they appear to be it may be well worth searching all those 1992 and 1993 donruss and 1992 leaf common boxes....i can't even imagine the potential sales figures for a few certain players ....

the next two items were not mentioned in the thread yet , so i was just adding a few "new" ones....

1995 donruss.....not sure if it affects all cards or if this variation is limited but i have a handful of base cards with the regular silver foil highlights on the front whose backs feature the gold "1st 2000 printed" banner that should be found only on the press proofs....i recall this being discussed VERY BRIEFLY when the product was still new but it seems this variation has been widely "forgotten"....i think i had about 15 or 20 of them and as i recall there was no pattern for finding them in boxes aside from the fact that the did fall in place of the correct versions of the press proofs....i'll have to do some digging to find my stash of them , but i am pretty sure i have a tom glavine somewhere close by if anyone needs to see a scan for proof...


2002 bowman....base cards are standard thickness....the gold parallels are approximately twice as thick.....i opened about a dozen boxes when the product was new and 4-5 more since....i ran into a rather unusual variation on the gold parallels in either one or two boxes.....in the effected box(es) every VETERAN gold (the red bordered cards) was the standard double thickness , but the facsimile signature was black (like the basic cards) instead of gold....pretty sure these variations were neither intentional or extremely plentiful and so far i've never found one from the blue prospects portion of the set.....if scans are needed i have a case with 10-12 in it i can show....

For those McGwire collectors... is this real?

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Mark-McGwir...1101981353?pt=US_Baseball&hash=item54135af6a9

gamecockfanatic said:

read through this thread yesterday

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I love information like this. Makes me feel validated for having the doubles boxes i have.

out of 6 extra 95 Donruss, none had the back misprint. And i have three gold 02 Bowmans, all thick stock, all gold signatures. The hunt continues...

VizquelCollector.com said:

For those McGwire collectors... is this real?

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Mark-McGwire-1998-SPx-Finite-Rare-Test-Sample-Possible-1-1-St-Louis-Cardinals-/361101981353?pt=US_Baseball&hash=item54135af6a9

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What the heck? Chicken scratched "sample"?

ASTROBURN said:

What the heck? Chicken scratched "sample"?

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Not sure either but I did get the O'neill. I'm not sure if I'm liking this stuff but its cheap enough and different.

VizquelCollector.com said:

For those McGwire collectors... is this real?

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Mark-McGwir...1101981353?pt=US_Baseball&hash=item54135af6a9

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I'm assuming someone found a few of these without serial #s and made them into these "rare maybe 1/1 samples".