What is an error card? (or variation card)

What is an error card? (or variation card)

I recently listed some 1991 Fleer baseball error or variation cards on eBay, which got me thinking about what actually determines if a card is a “true” error card?  Ultimately, the market for sports cards determines if a card is an error or variation card worth collecting.   If enough people are willing to collect a variation card, it obviously exists as a variation (social scientists would call this the social construction of reality, but I won’t delve into academic theories here...). Obviously, there has to be another version of an error card to make both worth collecting for a set builder or somebody that collects error cards.  Indeed, the 1991 Fleer baseball set is riddled with uncorrected error cards (usually labeled “UER” in a Beckett Guide or the Standard Catalog of Baseball Cards).  Uncorrected error cards usually have no extra value because there is no other corrected version to own.  While the errors might be funny or just plain innocuous on UER cards, they affect the value of the card very little in 99.99% of the cases where no corrected version exists.

So what is a true error card?

While this might seem like a silly discussion to people who do not collect sports cards, one just needs to go to eBay and search on the words ‘1990 Pro Set error’ (no apostrophes) to see a number of cards being sold as error cards that probably are not true error or variation cards.  The 1990 Pro Set Football set is so riddled with true error cards, which were later corrected by Pro Set, that thousands of collectors chase after the various versions of the cards. This situation has created an actual market for Pro Set error cards.  While I think this is a great and a fun collecting strategy for an otherwise hugely overprinted set, opportunists now often list 1990 Pro Set cards on eBay with simple printing errors that they try to claim are variation or error cards. To me, a print dot or slightly astray print line is not an error.

Indeed, I prefer the following definition for error cards:

“An error card is a sports card that contains some sort of mistake, such as a misspelling or a photo of someone other than the athlete named on the card.” (footnote 1).

I would further add the word ‘human’ before mistake to make the definition complete.  In other words, some person had to mess up or make an error in the process of taking a card from inception to printing it for consumers for it to be an error.  That error could be in proofreading the card for typos to having the wrong player on the card.

A perfect example is the 1989 Fleer Kevin Romine #98 card pictured below.  The error version on the left has the photo of Randy Kutcher – the wrong player.  Fleer, in later print runs, corrected the error with Kevin Romine’s actual photo in the card of the right.  It’s a pure human-error-caused variation.  Either the photographer messed up writing down whose picture was taken or somebody in the Fleer design studio chose the wrong picture in the first version.  Because Fleer also corrected the error, some collectors believe you need both cards to have the full set.  Again, uncorrected error cards, while interesting, do not create a possible second card to collect.

Caption: The card of the left is the 1989 Fleer Kevin Romine error card (#98a) that has a photo of Randy Kutcher instead of Romine.  After the error was discovered, it was corrected in later print runs with card #98b with a picture of Kevin Romine.  Both cards carry just #98 on the back of the card.

Because of the need for human error in the above definition, printing defects, mis-cut cards and other types of factory production mistakes would likely be ruled out as true error cards.  Such errors come from production presses, which while maybe caused by human errors such as poor printing press maintenance, are not systematic to the design of the card.  Being systematic to the design of the card is an important aspect of the error card because all copies of the same sports card are ultimately printed and centered uniquely when put under enough magnification such as a microscope.

So what is a true variation card?

A variation card (where no error occurred) would have a similar definition:

A sports card can have legitimate variations if the systematic design of the card varies due to human intervention in the process that changes the design, picture or wording.

A classic example of such variations would be Fleer 1991 Team Logo Stickers that were packaged with baseball cards in wax packs.  Each 1991 MLB team has two sticker variations.  While this difference was never acknowledged by Fleer, it has been speculated that Fleer used two different companies to print sticker inserts for 1991 and that each was sent slightly different designs by Fleer or allowed to adapt their own designs (footnote 2).  This explanation makes sense as it has been established that Fleer used two printing firms to make the actual baseball player cards in 1991 in order to maximize the amount of cards that would be printed (footnote 3) and thus flood the market during the junk era mania.

Caption: Above are Atlanta Braves 1991 Fleer Logo Stickers that are visibly different in design and thus are variations.  They have been given the designations NNO1a and NNO1b by the Trading Card Database.

Again, human intervention or error is central to creating variation cards.  Even if the card has no errors, the human decision or confusion that leads to two designs creates the legitimate variation.

As should be pointed out, arbiters play a key role in determining errors and variations for collectors.  For example, Beckett Price Guide recognition of an error or variation card gives it legitimacy for many collectors.  It suddenly becomes part of the set as listed in Beckett.  Some web sites also play influential roles.  The Trading Card Database tries to log all the error and variation cards in a set as reported by its crowd-sourcing users.  However, in either case, a collector must convince the editors or web site masters that a card is a legitimate error or variation card.

Caption: Above are two variations of Nolan Ryan's card #302 in the 1991 Fleer set.  The variation is subtle (e.g., where the lines are ruled through the years of stats on the back side of the card).  I would consider this card to be a legitimate variation because human intervention created the line ruling differences.  Note: Beckett does not recognize this variation in their set list for 1991 Fleer baseball.  It has been recognized the the Trading Card Database.

Returning to the original paragraph of this post, I would like to point out that the market of collectors usually determines if a variation/error card exists.  If enough collectors are willing to chase and acquire a card that is a different version of the same card, that card will be considered a variation by those collectors.  The purpose of this post was to try to encourage some collectors to think about what makes a variation card worth collecting versus a printing defect or some other non-human-based variation.

End Note

Like all other posts, please feel free to make comments.  I review all comments before they are posted in order to reduce spam and keep things on topic.

Footnotes:

1. Definition from: http://sportscards.about.com/od/sportscardglossary/g/error_card.htm

2. http://fleersticker.blogspot.com/2009/07/1991-fleer-baseball-stickers.html

3. http://keymancollectibles.com/baseballcards/fleer/1991fleerbaseballcards.htm