Anyone here very familiar with Minor League card issues?

[KLARNOLD]

As some of you might know that I am an Albert Pujols collector, I recently came across an auction for a 2000 Midwest League Top Prospects set with a PSA 8 of AP. Upon closer inspection, the AP has a "ring" around "Top Prospect" on front of card. Most APs from this set do not have the ring, making it a variation. What I never knew was that other players in the set might have the ring to. In the attached photo, the J.M. Gold card has the ring around Top Prospect as well. Is anyone here familiar with these "ring" variations and if they were an early/late printing of set?

 

[bstanwood]

Perhaps I'm not remembering right but I feel like there was a thread about the ring/no ring variation of the pujols, it might have been just a few posts in a thread though

 

[KLARNOLD]

Perhaps I'm not remembering right but I feel like there was a thread about the ring/no ring variation of the pujols, it might have been just a few posts in a thread though

I posted about the Pujols a while ago and got no responses. I was not aware of other players with the ring and it appears it might be the whole set that has it. Surely an Adam Dunn, Josh Beckett or Jake Peavey collector might know about this as they are in this set.

 

[KLARNOLD]

Found two Josh Beckett cards with the ring

 

[swish54_99]

I used to graph the MWL from about 2005-2016 and would get the top prospect sets signed every year. My home team was also Peoria and Pujols was a god here so there's a lot of Pujols cards and Pujols talk in general. I've never heard of a variation of that card in all my talks with other collectors while spending hours waiting before, during, and after games. That card comes up from time to time in conversations and I can't recall a variation mentioned. I do know that minor league cards are cheaply printed and inconsistencies happen quite often. With all of that said, my feeling is it is just an inconsistency in smaller printing companies not having the QC that a major company like Topps would have and that it's not a variation. Another reason that I doubt it's a variation is that PSA didn't call it out on the flip. They would have, if it were, and they did not.

 

[KLARNOLD]

I used to graph the MWL from about 2005-2016 and would get the top prospect sets signed every year. My home team was also Peoria and Pujols was a god here so there's a lot of Pujols cards and Pujols talk in general. I've never heard of a variation of that card in all my talks with other collectors while spending hours waiting before, during, and after games. That card comes up from time to time in conversations and I can't recall a variation mentioned. I do know that minor league cards are cheaply printed and inconsistencies happen quite often. With all of that said, my feeling is it is just an inconsistency in smaller printing companies not having the QC that a major company like Topps would have and that it's not a variation. Another reason that I doubt it's a variation is that PSA didn't call it out on the flip. They would have, if it were, and they did not.

Isn't an inconsistency the same as a variation, like the 1990 Topps NNOF Frank Thomas? Attached are my Pujols with ring and 2 without ring.

 

[swish54_99]

Found this post on blowout that talks about what I was trying to say and explains it a little better. I was trying to say it's more of a printing flaw that's not recognized as an error/variation, but just something that happens in the process of cheaply made cards.

https://www.blowoutforums.com/showthread.php?t=1466101

 

[tpeichel]

It looks more like a variation than a printing error.

 

[JoshHamilton]

Here’s a common without the ring, so it’s not limited to Pujols




Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Dilferules]

Yeah that's not a "printing flaw", it's some kind of printing variation. That doesn't automatically mean it's recognized widely as a completely different variation/error of the card...that's a whole other issue. The Frank Thomas NNOF is clearly a printing flaw that is a rare case where it was widely accepted/recognized as a separate variation. This card, the two different variations were obviously printed on purpose that way. Whether that means the hobby will accept/care about it...it evidently hasn't so far, over 20 years after Pujols debuted.

 

[KLARNOLD]

Just bought a complete set of these and each card has the ring. Maybe this was an early test run that got changed. See attached pic.