The three-year period between 1989 and 1991 was a time of great transition for the basketball card hobby.  Basketball had begun to establish itself as a major American sport and source of entertainment only a few years earlier, thanks in most part to the entrance of such players as Michael Jordan, Charles Barkley, Hakeem Olajuwon and Karl Malone into the NBA.  However, basketball card collecting had not yet become a significant hobby in the US; that did not happen until 1989.  Before then, there had never been more than one professionally licensed set of basketball cards produced in a year, and as recently as 1982, there were none made at all.

What changed in 1989 was David Robinson’s joining the pros.  His 1989-90 Hoops rookie card was a shocking innovation, marking the first time a player’s rookie card had been produced in his rookie year.  Before then, collectors had to wait until a player’s sophomore season to obtain an NBA-licensed card of him; in those days, the stats on the backs of base cards (which today are considered so unimportant that some sets do not even include them) were considered important, and it was thought pointless to make cards of players who had no stats yet.  Even though Robinson’s rookie card had no stats, it became the first basketball card absolutely every collector had to have, and almost single-handedly carved out a spot for the basketball card market.  That year, two NBA-licensed sets were produced for the first time ever, and that number grew to three in 1990, four in 1991, seven in 1992, and so on, until it reached the 40-50 we have per year today.

This is where error cards come into play.  Card companies could only produce so many cards of the Admiral, so collectors came for him and stayed for the errors.  This was the time when insert cards were just beginning to catch on, and the focus in collecting was on completing large base sets.  Collectors paid strict attention to every last word printed on every last card, and as such, so did the employees of the card companies.  Error cards have always been made, but in those days, the companies tried to catch them and correct them.  Sometimes this did not happen until production was already under way, and two versions of some cards would be inserted into packs.  These days, of course, considerably less attention is paid to base cards, and the companies usually do not bother correcting mistakes that are made.

Between 1989 and 1991, it gave collectors a little thrill to discover such cards, and a significant market developed for them.  But that market disappeared as abruptly as it appeared in 1992, when the basketball card hobby received another jolt with Shaquille O’Neal’s pro debut.  This inspired the card companies to compete with each other at creating the fanciest Shaq card possible.  Just as Robinson’s rookie card helped put basketball cards on the map, Shaq’s 1992-93 Stadium Club Beam Team card began the hobby’s development into what it is today.

Now, with the name of the game being who can hoard the most ludicrously rare and expensive cards, the error card market has essentially faded into obscurity.  This guide seeks to change that, to provide information to those collectors who enjoy returning to a simpler time, and who still enjoy completing sets.  Get out your old shoeboxes and your magnifying glass...it’s time to go error-hunting.

Completists, unironically, have a passion for completeness.  For some people, it doesn’t matter how much of a set they have.  For others, having cards #1 through #X is enough.  But for completists, if there are multiple versions of card #X, the set does not truly feel complete unless they own them all.  For those people, even if the price guides say the set is complete at 400 cards, it won’t feel complete until they have 401, or 402, or however many.  There is a sense of satisfaction to be had in that, more so than just having the 400.

Furthermore, the effects of mass-producing extremely low-run cards has become readily obvious; ironically, as obvious as the effects of mass-producing extremely high-run cards was during the early 1990s.  Where a common card with a print run of 50 would have had a book value of $50 in 1997, it would be lucky to be worth $5 a decade later.  Time has also proven that it makes rare cards rarer, as more and more of them end up in the hands of people who obstinately refuse to sell or trade them, and they virtually disappear from the marketplace.  1990s error cards may have print runs that are tens or hundreds of times that of modern cards (it’s impossible to know the exact number), meaning they will never have especially high book values, but time and general ignorance sometimes makes them much harder to find.  So collectors can enjoy obtaining cards that are hard to find and have small price tags at the same time.

Common Types of Errors

Here are some of the most common things that go wrong in card production.  You’ve probably seen many of these in the past, but you may not have thought much about them.

Factual Errors: Inaccuracies in information in the card’s text.  For example, stating a player’s height as 6'0" when it should be 6'10", or that he went to college at Florida State instead of Florida.  It could also refer to a piece of information or a graphic that should be present, being missing.

Foil Stamping Errors: A card that should have foil stamping has none, or has the stamp from a different card.

Miscuts: The card is so off-center that part of its picture is missing, and the picture from an adjoining card is on it.  This happens when the sheet the card was printed on was mis-centered during printing.  The same problem can also result in the card being cut in the wrong place, and ending up larger or smaller than it should be.

Misnumbering: The card’s checklist number is missing, or different from what it should be.

Photo Errors: The photo on the card is of a different player than the one named on the card, or the name on the card is of a different player than the one in the photo.

Side Mismatches: The card has a blank front or back, or its back and front come from different cards.

Sticker Autograph Errors: A card with a sticker autograph has a sticker signed by a player other than the one who appears on the card.  This type of error, of course, has only manifested since auto stickers began being made.

Classifying Errors

Errors in card production happen all the time, and they happen in many ways.  It’s important to know what type of error you have to know how desirable it is compared to the correct version.  This guide covers the following types of error cards:

Corrected Error: Two versions of the card exist, and this is the version on which the error is present.  The error version of the card does not represent its entire print run, but does represent a statistically significant part of it.

Correction: Two versions of the card exist, and this is the version on which the error is not present.  The correct version of the card does not represent its entire print run, but does represent a statistically significant part of it.

Variation: At least two versions of the card exist, each of which represents a statistically significant part of the card’s print run.  The differences between versions are subtle enough that none can be explicitly labeled the error or correct versions.

The preceding do not constitute the only types of error cards that exist.  The following types, however, are not covered by this guide:

Uncorrected Error: The error is present on all instances of the card.  There is only one version of the card, as no instances of it appear that do not bear the error.

Isolated Error: This does represent a significant difference from the normal card, but is a unique (1/1) error or nearly so.  This does not represent a statistically significant part of the card’s print run.

Intentional Variation: The manufacturer has deliberately created more than one version of the card.  For example, see the 2006-07 Topps base set, in which some rookies have one card showing them in action and another showing them in their draft day suits, and there are 33 different cards of Larry Bird, each with identical backs but different photos on the front.

Parallel: An insert card that resembles the base card, but with some distinguishing feature and a significantly smaller print run.  This is a separate set, not an error or variation.  If you don’t know what parallel sets are, you shouldn’t be collecting!

As you may have been able to tell from the descriptions, this guide is only concerned with cards of which there are two different versions, one of which was produced unintentionally, or which unintentional circumstances caused deliberate production of two different versions.  The point of collecting error cards is to capitalize on the card companies’ mistakes, so in this guide I will be focusing only on genuine mistakes.  Also, if it sounds like error cards don’t obey the rules normal cards obey today–that is, the rarer the better–you’re right.  When these cards were made, no one knew there would one day be 1/1's, 1/10's, 1/100's, or even 1/1000's.  So in order to get onto the map, error cards had to be plentiful enough that they would get noticed by a large number of people, but still rare enough that they were hard to find.  If you had a 1/1 error or a 1/10 error, only a small number of people would notice it, and word about it would not get out.  Think about this from the manufacturer’s point of view.  Would you tell collectors about every single individual card you screwed up?  Even if you could document them all, and you probably couldn’t, the list would be many pages long.  You’d probably only tell them if a significant portion of the print run was screwed up.  And we’ll be getting to that in time.

Further Reading

I have written a more in-depth guide, complete with illustrations of all cards described here, but it is too long and complex to post in eBay guides.  If you would like to see it, or have information on the “alleged” cards mentioned in the next section, please contact me at gatorboymike@yahoo.com.

Guide

Here I will run through every major error and variation card made between 1948 and 1994 (there have been none made since then).  Note that some of them will be marked with the label “alleged.”  For these cases, I am not completely sure the error really exists, because I have never seen it and neither has anyone I have dealt with.  I have been pursuing and studying these cards for almost 20 years, and in some cases, not only have I never encountered them, I found the initial claims of their existence to be suspect.

For each card, the rarer version will be marked with an asterisk (*).  In cases where both versions are of equal print run, there will be no asterisk.

1948 Bowman second series (#37-72)


1970-71 Topps #101 Checklist 2

1971-72 Topps #144 NBA Checklist

1977-78 Topps entire set (#1-132)

1981-82 Topps #E93 East Checklist (alleged)

1983-84 Star #38 Sidney Moncrief

1983-84 Star #247 Mike Mitchell

1983-84 Star #248 Mark McNamara

1985-86 Star Boston Celtics team set (#95-102)

1989-90 Fleer #31 John Williams/Cavaliers

1989-90 Fleer #107 Gerald Wilkins

1989-90 Fleer #162 John Williams/Bullets

1989-90 Hoops #115 Spud Webb

1989-90 Hoops #123 Don Chaney

1989-90 Hoops #171 John MacLeod

1989-90 Hoops #269 Bernie Bickerstaff

1989-90 Hoops #279 Orlando Woolridge

1989-90 Hoops #284 James Edwards

1989-90 Hoops #353 Pistons Champions


1990-91 Fleer #23 Bill Cartwright

1990-91 Fleer #39 Adrian Dantley

1990-91 Fleer #127 Johnny Newman

1990-91 Fleer #150 Dan Majerle

1990-91 Fleer #192 Harvey Grant

1990-91 Hoops #13 All-Star Checklist

1990-91 Hoops #169 Rony Seikaly

1990-91 Hoops #171 John Sundvold

1990-91 Hoops #172 Billy Thompson

1990-91 Hoops #223 Sam Vincent

1990-91 Hoops #234 Tom Chambers

1990-91 Hoops #238 Kevin Johnson

1990-91 Hoops #249 Terry Porter

1990-91 Hoops #298 Tom Hammonds

1990-91 Hoops #341 Pistons win second championship

1990-91 Hoops #378 David Robinson team checklist

1990-91 Hoops #406 Danny Ferry

1990-91 Hoops #NNO David Robinson/All-Rookie Team


1990-91 Skybox #91 Dennis Rodman (alleged)

1990-91 Skybox #112 Otis Thorpe

1990-91 Skybox #113 Mitchell Wiggins

1990-91 Skybox #118 Dyron Nix


1990-91 Skybox #224 Kevin Johnson (alleged)

1990-91 Skybox #244 Antoine Carr

1990-91 Skybox #271 Nate McMillan

1991-92 Fleer #277 Dikembe Mutombo RC (alleged)

1991-92 Hoops McDonald’s #49 Billy Owens

1992-93 Fleer #4 Jon Koncak

1992-93 Skybox #305 David Robinson team ticket

1992-93 Upper Deck #100 Tyrone Corbin

1992-93 Upper Deck #110 Steve Smith

1992-93 Upper Deck #453 Michael Jordan In Your Face


1992-93 Upper Deck #454 Dominique Wilkins In Your Face

1994-95 Fleer Team Leaders #3 Mutombo/Dumars/Sprewell

And that basically concludes the guide.  In the long term, error cards had only a short time as the hot item in basketball card collecting.  Before that, rookie cards were king.  After that, insert cards became the hot ticket.  The hobby expanded further in the late 1990s with the advent of serial numbering and highly limited print runs, increased production of autograph cards, the development of game-used relic cards, and the re-emergence of rookie cards to prominence.  Due to the nature of error cards, and with the super-rare card now a major staple of the hobby, error cards have effectively been eliminated from the market and relegated to obscurity from now on.


That was, until 2007, when historic error collectors received a nostalgic shock.  Two short-printed subsets of the 2007-08 Ultra SE set, Lucky 13–which represented the first 13 picks of the 2007 NBA Draft–and Legendary 13–which represented 13 popular retired players–were found to exist in error versions that had blank backs.  These are rarer than the normal cards, and with players like Kevin Durant, Greg Oden, Michael Jordan and Larry Bird featured, they had the names to generate lasting interest.  They quickly began selling on eBay for two to five times the price of the correct versions, and continue to draw a premium.  Does this represent the beginning of a new market for error cards?  We’ll have to wait and see.