Frank Thomas 1990 Topps NNOF Error... What's the story?!

[morgoth]

This card is one of the most researched error card of all time. It has been shown what actually happened to the printing sheet and how that could have happened. Also IMO for a error card to be real it has to exist in two versions, error and corrected.

Some people call this card not an error due to a damaged or obstructed printing plate but the fact it was corrected to me makes this a legit card.

 

[jacksoncoupage]

My thoughts on this card is that it is only worth a lot because Beckett says it is worth a lot.

How does Beckett decide which errors they list and price and which they don't?

This isn't exactly true. It's price is governed by the facts others have mentioned: HOFer's RC, scarcity, etc. That said, Beckett and it's pricing for it are nonsensical. And they do not update pricing on major scarcities (especially errors) with any frequency. The 1990 Upper Deck Mike Witt was "booking" at $10 for more than 10 years despite seeing $500-800 sales.

If this card were not Frank Thomas' RC or depicting any star player, I can guarantee, that almost zero attention would be paid to it outside variation collecting circles. This is proven time and time again as tons of print flaw cards, especially those missing portions of ink, go un-cataloged and disregarded as "flaws, not true errors" by both the powers that be and the bulk of the collecting community. There are literally thousands of cards with the same misprint as the Thomas that are considered less-than-legit variations.

I do think this card deserves the attention and price that it receives. It's hugely important to one of the most interesting times in the hobby's history. In terms of how many sheets were pressed with this error, I am guessing closer to 500-1000 copies of it. I absolutely believe that there is wax out there with some of these (CU member RookieWax's findings have shown this) and although we haven't seen many examples to support it, I believe that there are versions of this card that fall somewhere between the NNOF and the correction, depicting various stages of missing ink. And any of those will likely be in much, much smaller production numbers, possibly just a handful of each type.

 

[BunchOBull]

I do think this card deserves the attention and price that it receives. It's hugely important to one of the most interesting times in the hobby's history. In terms of how many sheets were pressed with this error, I am guessing closer to 500-1000 copies of it. I absolutely believe that there is wax out there with some of these (CU member RookieWax's findings have shown this) and although we haven't seen many examples to support it, I believe that there are versions of this card that fall somewhere between the NNOF and the correction, depicting various stages of missing ink. And any of those will likely be in much, much smaller production numbers, possibly just a handful of each type.

For this to be true, these variations couldn't be a plate issue. I think the printing community pretty much sealed the deal that the printing process could not support a gradient error due to obstruction. If there had been a physical obstruction on the plate, ink would have pooled around the obstruction. The lack of ink suggests the actual plate itself was etched incorrectly.

I believe an original negative had a slight error or blemish, a cleaning or repair was made to the negative, but it resulted in the swipe of inkless area on the images. The negative was then used to make a black plate. I think this can be supported with the 2 versions that have been isolated, the "partial blackless" and the true NNOF. I believe that the popularity of this card over the course of the last 2 decades would have lead to these discoveries if there were a gradient between the two extremes. The 1990 Topps #414 is one of the most scrutinized cards of all time.

 

[BunchOBull]

Did Topps even issue hobby vs retail boxes in 1990? Short of regular wax, rack, and jumbo packs, I don't remember there even being different boxes to indicate hobby vs retail wax.

The differences in retail bound wax packs and hobby bound wax packs doesn't exist in it package or box, but in it's shipping case. But you're right, there is no discernible difference in them.

 

[jacksoncoupage]

For this to be true, these variations couldn't be a plate issue. I think the printing community pretty much sealed the deal that the printing process could not support a gradient error due to obstruction. If there had been a physical obstruction on the plate, ink would have pooled around the obstruction. The lack of ink suggests the actual plate itself was etched incorrectly.

I believe an original negative had a slight error or blemish, a cleaning or repair was made to the negative, but it resulted in the swipe of inkless area on the images. The negative was then used to make a black plate. I think this can be supported with the 2 versions that have been isolated, the "partial blackless" and the true NNOF. I believe that the popularity of this card over the course of the last 2 decades would have lead to these discoveries if there were a gradient between the two extremes. The 1990 Topps #414 is one of the most scrutinized cards of all time.

That may very well be the case and I get that it isn't too likely but I have found similar variations of portions of black ink missing on 80's Topps cards where say, 10-20 examples show up with the exact affected areas/portions and then a third type is found whith smaller portions of missing ink within the same areas as the other examples. Making it seem like something gradual or the obstruction shifting or whatever solution that prvented the black ink, gradually losing its effect. This would account for the Thomas with missing "chips" of black ink that you own.

And just for kicks, several years ago, in 2001-2002ish, an old customer/friend told me a story of how he purchased a bunch of vending machine inventory from an arcade in Burbank, CA, comprised mostly of 1990 Topps. This purchase was made sometime in 1997-98 and he claimed that after pulling out all the Frank Thomas and JuanGone cards, he was disappointed to discover that his Thomas cards had most of the name printed but not all of it. When I contacted him a few years ago at the beginning of your CU thread on this, he recalled that they said "Thoma or "Thom." Obviously, I have bugged him over the years to get digging into his garage/collection to find these, reminding him of the card's surge in value/interest lately but it's very unlikely he has the time or energy to do this. I have no reason to doubt him and it's entirely possible that what he found was a separate misprinting than the famous NNOF errors but it's always been, to me, an interesting element to this card and it's history.

 

[gigfy]

Just found this thread. Pulled my blackless cards out of wax packs from Ballston Spa back in the day.

104 - Bob Knepper (missing black border bottom right corner)
141 - John Hart (manager) (missing black border top left corner)
227 - Kevin Tapani (missing black border upper right corner)
302 - Marcus Lawton (missing black border lower right and upper left corners, missing part of last name)
383 - John Morris (missing small portion of black border in upper right)
385 - Fred McGriff AS (missing black border lower left corner)
386 - Julio Franco AS (missing black border top and top right corner, missing black in background)
392 - Carlton Fisk AS (missing black border lower left corner)
395 - Jeff Russell AS (missing black border lower right corner and upper left side, missing black in background)
404 - Craig Biggio AS (missing black border upper left corner & right side, top right background behind him is white)
406 - Joe Magrane AS (missing black border upper right corner)
414 - Frank Thomas (rookie) (missing name, black border lower right corner / bottom and part of left side)
728 - Jim Acker (missing small portion of black border in lower left)

BOLD (denotes the ones I have)

Tapani

Lawton

Morris

McGriff

Biggio

Thomas

Acker

 

[BunchOBull]

Just found this thread. Pulled my blackless cards out of wax packs from Ballston Spa back in the day.

Welcome Bud! I'm still looking for most of those copies.

 

[gigfy]

So since bgs has graded 71 & I assume psa about the same (anyone want to check), would it be safe to think that about 200 of these are out there?

I just checked and it says PSA9 has a population of 18. 1 higher (Dimitri PSA10 or mechanical error card) and 135 lower. In 2009 it had same info but only a population of 115 lower.

PSA Report 2009
Grade: 9
Pop: 18
Pop Higher: 1
Pop Lower: 115

PSA Report 2013
Grade: 9
Pop: 18
Pop Higher: 1
Pop Lower: 135

FYI, this was the BGS info I could gather together in 2009.

BGS Pop Report 2009
BGS 3.5 ... 1
BGS 5 ...... 4
BGS 5.5 ... 1
BGS 6 ...... 1
BGS 6.5 ... 3
BGS 7.5 ... 5
BGS 8 ...... 6
BGS 8.5 ... 17
BGS 9 ...... 4
Total 42

 

[Bigjewc]

I know I'm touching on an old thread, but I just had one question, does anyone think that a signed nnof would hold any value at all over just the regular nnof.

And I need to have mine graded. But it's basically been locked in a case since the early 90's when I got it. It looks like there is no damage at all. But I am no pro when it comes to the grading of cards. Actually just decided to post here due to the vast amount of info I received on my card from just this thread.

Thank you for any information you can provide

 

[MansGame]

I know I'm touching on an old thread, but I just had one question, does anyone think that a signed nnof would hold any value at all over just the regular nnof.

And I need to have mine graded. But it's basically been locked in a case since the early 90's when I got it. It looks like there is no damage at all. But I am no pro when it comes to the grading of cards. Actually just decided to post here due to the vast amount of info I received on my card from just this thread.

Thank you for any information you can provide

Have a picture?

 

[BunchOBull]

Only one graded example has been signed, I sold the formerly raw card to the man who had it signed. It's changed hands twice since then, selling for very little premium (15% approximately) both times. Overwhelmingly, the market prefers unsigned, but there are plenty of novelty collectors who will purchase such a thing.

 

[Bigjewc]

That is what I had heard recently, that the signed ones didn't have much of a value or even less of a value at times. It's been about 25 years since I've collected cards, so I'm bit out of the loop these days. But yeah, guess the signed stuff is less desirable. And I'll figure out how to post a pic here in a min and post a pic of the card. And thank you for the info everyone.

 

[Bigjewc]

I know it's not really of any importance at all, but I read that they claim to have been just an east coast distribution, but I got mine here in Las Vegas. I kinda got a laugh out of that. I'm a long way away and 1 managed to make it way out here to me. Hehe

 

[finestkind]

Reading this topic still dosen't make me want to bust my 1990 wax case.

 

[Bigjewc]

Here's a pic, the card case has scratches on the outside of it, but the card itself has no damage. It's basically been locked up in a case since the day I got it out of the pack back in 90-91.

Hopefully I figured out how to upload the pic correctly. We'll know here in a second when I hit the post button

 

[Bigjewc]

Well, that stinks. Photo rotated somehow. Sorry

 

[BunchOBull]

I know it's not really of any importance at all, but I read that they claim to have been just an east coast distribution, but I got mine here in Las Vegas. I kinda got a laugh out of that. I'm a long way away and 1 managed to make it way out here to me. Hehe

That east coast distribution was something I started almost 10 years ago and has kind of proliferated as its meaning was lost from the original context. As I spoke to people who had pulled the card through the years, overwhelmingly, they were folks in the Northeast and eastern seaboard, with the occasional northern midwestern pull. Later I heard of pulls in Texas and now LV, so my observation was purely anecdotal and not scientific; that said, secondary distribution can take products anywhere in the world. My understanding is that Topps was using 2 printers at the time, one in Texas and one in the NE...I took to believing the errors were printed at the NE site.

 

[BunchOBull]

That's a beautiful copy, assuming the top left corner is mint and the reverse has no defects, that's a sure-fire 8, with a high probability at a 9.

 

[Bigjewc]

Ah, I see. Well I'm really happy I got lucky back then. I always was a fan of frank, so when I pulled that card out and noticed the name was missing I, for some unknown reason, put it in a case thinking that it was an error of some sort and should protect it. Who knew!!! I didn't even know till about 3 weeks ago that it was a hot item. Guess I just got lucky.

 

[Bigjewc]

Oh, thumb in the way, sorry, but yeah, no damage on the top left at all