Monday, February 12, 2018

Read The Fine Print

I have recently begun posting on FreedomCardboard Forums and I am stunned at some of the player collector's there and their commitment to adding everything they can of certain players (mostly stars of the 90s).  Reading some of their posts and recognizing small details in the fine print and seeking them out impresses the hell out of me.

This got me thinking about a card I have had in my possession for half a decade.  No official numbers support this production error, but I have NEVER seen another show up in the past 5 years on eBay.

What you see here may appear to be a 2012 Topps Chrome Face of the Franchise die cut card.

The details are in the fine print though.  Look in the center and you can see the words Topps Certified Autograph Issue
You may notice that there's no autograph.

Maybe someone just cleverly printed that on the card.
Maybe the concept of this card is a fake.

Well, check out the back.
Looks pretty standard, right?
Can you tell the difference in the card above and card pictured below?

Again the details reveal this card's true purpose.
This card was intended to be signed.
Clearly this card was intended to be autographed, but for whatever reason this card never got the sticker autograph applied to it, nor did it receive the serial numbering to 15 copies that all other Face of Franchise autos had placed in gold foil on the back left hand side.

It is possible that there are 14 others of this card out there.  It is also possible there are more out there.  It's most likely though that there are a dozen of these in dime boxes to dollar bins of this unknown production error.

I would love to find an officially signed version of this card one day, but I haven't yet.


4 comments:

  1. Fun collectible

    Panini had an error a few years ago in prestige basketball. All of the cards said autos on the backs. But weren't . Panini said all were errors. I was disappointed in the 10 I had lol

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  2. I guess cards like this always favor the buyer. If you are selling it is a tough picture to paint trying to explain the rarity of the card. For what its worth I've never seen the auto version of that card in circulation.

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  3. Cool card. You should have Cutch sign it and your rare collectible will become even rarer.

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  4. Interesting! I probably wouldn't have even noticed it.

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