Did the companies purposely create errors during junk wax years?

Sure, errors and variations have always been part of this hobby, even today but now we all know they are intentional.

But between '88 and '91 there was a truly incredible amount of these. More so than probably any other time.

Just between 90 donruss and 91 topps there are probably a couple thousand!

Granted nearly all of those are so minor that they have no extra value ("Inc." With or without the dot, topps glow backs etc).

Back then, companies had a good reason financially to create and correct errors because they sold more boxes through the year. More boxes sold meant more re orders and the presses kept running.

But what about the obvious ones, like the Nolan Ryan wrong backs in 90 donruss, the 90 ud Ben McDonald with wrong logo or THE king of errors, Billy Ripken?

Each of these were like "sure, I believe those were legit (wink wink)"

You know, the hottest player, the hottest rookie and something so unique and OBVIOUS and controversial, it could only sell untold more cases.

I think all the errors in 90 Donruss (minus the "inc" ones)were totally intentional as I'm sure donruss saw how much more fleer made previous year and went all out.

What do you all think?



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I think when the original error craze happened in 1981, the errors were genuine as Fleer and Donruss scrambled to put their sets out for the season after the court ruling that allowed them to distribute their cards with gum. Those first printings of those sets experienced an incredible amount of errors which were corrected in the second printings. Collectors then realized these corrections created short prints and in the scramble to find them they bought everything they could get there hands on that Fleer and Donruss would produce. This obviously resulted in many many more of these boxes of products being sold and the companies no doubt stood up and took notice. I have zero doubt that the companies did purposely create errors as 1982 saw some pretty significant errors by not only Fleer but Topps as well.

mchenrycards said:

I think when the original error craze happened in 1981, the errors were genuine as Fleer and Donruss scrambled to put their sets out for the season after the court ruling that allowed them to distribute their cards with gum. Those first printings of those sets experienced an incredible amount of errors which were corrected in the second printings. Collectors then realized these corrections created short prints and in the scramble to find them they bought everything they could get there hands on that Fleer and Donruss would produce. This obviously resulted in many many more of these boxes of products being sold and the companies no doubt stood up and took notice. I have zero doubt that the companies did purposely create errors as 1982 saw some pretty significant errors by not only Fleer but Topps as well.

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I agree.
I also believe the '89 Upper Deck Dale Murphy reversed negative was deliberate. The book Card Sharks also claims the error card was reprinted on purpose and sold separately to dealers in bulk.

The '89 Bill Ripken error is a possibilty, but I'm not sure why Fleer would have wanted the negative publicity of a curse word on a product meant for children.

I don't think the '89 Ripken was an intentional.

The downside of the possible backlash, especially from parents groups, would have been too high to risk it IMO...

gt2590 said:

I don't think the '89 Ripken was an intentional.

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I think it was intentional. I don't buy a graphic artist who created the card front, the proofer who checks it, MLB and MLBPA to check and sign off on it, etc.would have missed something so obvious in the pic or that Fleer may have even photoshopped FF to the bat knob after it was signed off by MLB/MLBPA if FF wasn't on the knob in original proofs and mockups.

It's also suspicious that it took about 7 billion variations to fix it. You'd think one black out scribble variation or just one variation of airbrushing FF off the bat knob would have been an easy enough "fix" that you would have had the FF and corrected versions only.

Overall, other than 1981 as someone else mentioned, I do believe errors were purposely created to drive card sales and I know I would have stopped with my complete hand-collated sets and not continued purchasing more boxes of junk wax had there not been some fun errors and variations to try to bust from boxes.

I think at first error cards were just that... Errors. Then when the companies saw that people were chasing them and went nuts, they decided to create the errors. It drove sales.

Pro Set was all about error cards.

finestkind said:

Pro Set was all about error cards.

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Can't tell you how many 90/91 Pro Set Hockey packs I bought solely because of the errors.

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finestkind said:

Pro Set was all about error cards.

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Lud Denny was a snake oil salesman


As for the question, of course. There's a reason error cards disappeared in the mid 90's. They stopped being popular.

The only error I don't think was intentional is the NNOF Thomas. I used to think it was, until the CU thread and the other cards that were discovered

Error cards didn't disappear, but they became rarer. Computerization became more prevalent, so you didn't have to typeset tens of thousands of little numbers and whatnot on the backs of cards each year by hand. There are still mistakes, but I suspect they tend to be more with programming than card composition. I could believe the Ripken error slipped through because who really looks that closely when you've got 659 other cards to look at. At least, I believe that more than MLB saying they were good with the idea. Or maybe the person that did got fired. The other major 89 Fleer photo error involved a big billboard, and I don't think they'd intentionally let that one through, either.

Also, keep in mind they printed cards by the billion back then. Multiple print runs, fixing different things along the way. And it was probably 1 or 2 guys in charge of managing all the content, things get missed.

It is funny now Topps has integrated intentional errors/variations as part of the value-add for several products.

JoshHamilton said:

As for the question, of course. There's a reason error cards disappeared in the mid 90's. They stopped being popular.

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I tend to think it's not popularity, but because the releases go through just one print run nowdays. The only single print run release errors that I have cared about are in Topps flagship, because Topps sometimes fixes those errors in their factory sets, giving you the error and its fix to chase for completeness.

rsmath said:

I tend to think it's not popularity, but because the releases go through just one print run nowdays. The only single print run release errors that I have cared about are in Topps flagship, because Topps sometimes fixes those errors in their factory sets, giving you the error and its fix to chase for completeness.

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I agree. Topps no longer corrects errors but they do intentionally create SPs providing the same chase fun without stopping the presses. Errors simply stopped being corrected (or editors did a better job) but I don't think popularity decreased. Prices, like everything in our hobby declined, sure. 90s errors were popular still (think the Donruss Juan Gone RC, Ben McDonald UD RC, etc) I think. Variations, as a separate entity and not to be confused with the intentionally check listed kinds of today's cards, we're basically shrugged off however (Donruss color/inc and what not)


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The 90 UD Ben McDonald error was a huge selling error. I always wondered if that was intentional due to his rookie hype.