Finding errors in your collection you didn't know existed ... are they worth anything?

A funny thing happens when you're sorting cards. You might discover a card that you hadn't realized existed.

As I work through my Derek Jeter cards -- finally creating a want list and putting together a definitive list of what I own -- I came across on an error card.

The 1995 Fleer Major League Prospects -- Jeter's first Fleer card -- has two different versions. One has all the correct marking on the back while the other is missing the licensing marks from the bottom of the card.

It's not a significant error nor one that seems to be worth much. There are several of both cards listed on COMC starting at the low, low price of $1.65. Beckett doesn't even list the error, where PSA has it separated out for the master collection.

When looking in my binder, I realized I had the card with no markings. Great, I already had the error card out of the way, so now I needed the correct version of the card. Amazingly, I couldn't find this card in box of Jeter doubles, so next time I'm at a card show, I'll have to look a little more closely at the backs of these cards.

Error cards are interesting because so many people think that just because a card is an error that it's worth more. Generally, it takes two factors for an error card to be valuable:

1. The error card needs to be scarce, because ...
2. There is a corrected version of the card.

With modern cards, error cards usually remain just a widely circulated error. These error cards, usually, carry no premium.

However, there have been famous error cards throughout the years that are very valuable.

1957 Topps Hank Aaron #20

Topps mistakenly used the reverse negative for this card image and Aaron, one of the greatest home run hitters, is pictured as a left-handed hitter.

(These kinds of mistake still happen with players standing in the wrong pose. There are some recent Joey Votto cards where he's pictured with a righty swing when he is in fact a left-handed hitter.)

1987 Donruss Opening Day Barry Bonds #163

On the first print run, Bonds' teammate Johnny Ray is featured instead of the slugger. However, Donruss fixed the mistake on subsequent printings, which makes the error much more valuable. The Ray error card has been sold for hundreds -- if not thousands in a high grade -- while the Bonds rookie sells for far, far less.

1989 Fleer Billy Ripken #616

We all know what is said under the black or white box that Fleer put on different printings. The expletive made it onto some of the cards before it was noticed and the company covered it up. There are several versions of this card with the book value ranging widely on them. The original without any airbrushing is popular, but actually not the most rare. The card with the "white scribble" where it looks like someone tried to write over the bad words sells for the most on the secondary market.

1990 Topps Frank Thomas

Another popular and valuable error card is Frank Thomas' 1990 Topps card that has no name. One of the reasons it became so valuable is because a corrected version in a much higher quantity exists. The no-name version of the card will run collectors hundreds, if not, thousands of dollars.

These days, missing name happen from time-to-time on cards that have the name stamped in foil. Sometimes during the printing process, there will be a run where the foil is missed. When caught, the cards are removed and destroyed, however, a number still make it through.

These won't fetch dollars like the Thomas card. For the most part, the only people who would chase the missing foil cards are probably player collectors looking to have as many different variations of a card that are possible.

Spot the Error

While putting some of my Bowman prospect cards in order I stumbled across something interesting. There is an error on this card. You figure it out.


Anyone else find other errors in the 2011 Bowman Chrome?

2011 Bowman Error

Obviously most sets have errors in them these days, nothing is perfect which we all know however this one is so obvious I think most of us might have overlooked it. Take a look at this Willie Cabrera card and tell me if you see something wrong with it because I have one here in my hand and still passed it by until someone told me they noticed it.

Apparently it's not obvious to anyone because no one has it listed on eBay as an error card. Makes me wonder if he signed his contract electronically by entering a series of numbers and letters into a pdf document...

Please tell me you noticed it.... Also, I would like to know if anyone noticed this before while opening packs because I gotta be honest, I had to go through my set and see for myself that I missed it altogether while sorting.

Here's your sign.

Every so often we like to post eBay idiots on here. Well, I like nothing better than to procrastinate homework by rummaging eBay looking for nonsense items. Today was no exception.

Here is our first bozo. This auction claims to have a "foil error". No, it's just poor quality control but thanks for playing. Here's your sign.

Next up will be a card that you will hate/love if you collect Stephen Strasburg. It's cool if you like having an obscure card in your collection, it's not so cool if you aren't willing to pay $20+ for a base insert.

Now these are interesting. There are a bunch of these no foil variations floating on eBay and I honestly can't remember if I saw any like this in the case. I really didn't look at any of the base cards at all. If anyone ended up with a sparkle card or a no foil card, please let us know. I'd be interested to see what really ended up coming out of that case.

I think the better question is why are they calling them variations? We all know how they ended up like that, but I don't see that as worth listing on eBay for $5.00 when I could get the actual card for a quarter.

I'm sure I will have more tales to share later. I am waiting on another offer rejection (Some people apparently think Cano autographs /50 are worth $150) for a card I reallllllyyyy want so I am sure I will troll around eBay looking for something else.

2011 ERROR Leather Name Plate Card

As some of you may recall we pulled a Jason Heyward Leather Name Plates card from our case of 2011 Topps Series 1 the other day. Honestly, when I open the cases I show the cards up close on the camera for the people who own the teams to look at and I barely give them a once over. My looking at the hits goes as far as making sure they are not damaged, and saying what I think of signatures, textures, etc.



Now, I have learned I should probably pay more attention to the cards so that I can shout it out when there is a huge mistake on one of the cards. Colbey, the owner of the team had left a comment telling me of the mistake and when I looked I was kind of shocked considering Heyward was the poster child for 2010 Bowman Sterling I know Topps can spell his name correctly. In case the scan isn't clear enough, they spelled his name "Jayson" instead of "Jason".

I don't believe this was an intentional error by any means, so I kinda think this is a cool card for the Braves collector or Jason Heyward collector.

As of right now, this card is the only one on eBay of Heyward listed as an "Error" card.

On that note, there is also one other error card worth noting on eBay. I can see how the mistake was made, the players look alike....

What do I do with these cards?

Looking through Kevin Kouzmanoff in Topps Series 2, I saw that he had one of the hat patch cards.

My first concern was, do I really want to pick up this card where it shows an A's logo from last year's Independence Day celebration when Kouzmanoff wasn't on the team yet. Then, I looked closer.

That is not Kevin Kouzmanoff in that picture. Not only is that not Kevin Kouzmzanoff, but that man has never worn an A's uniform. It took me a few minutes to realize it was Chase Headley, this season's third baseman for the Padres. Headley played third in the minors, but moved to the outfield when he was brought up because Kouz played third. Kouz was traded in the offseason to Oakland and Headley moved back to third.

Then, I did more research on eBay and found this card:

Chase Headley's patch card EXCEPT that is Kouz pictured on top of the card.

So, now here comes my dilemma. I want to own every Kouz card I can. That's just the way I am as a player collector. However, in this situation of comedic errors, his name is one card and his picture is on another.

The options are:
A. Buy the card with his name
B. Buy the card with his photo
C. Buy both cards and glue them back-to-back (This was suggested by the boyfriend)
D. Forget both card and pretend like they do not exist because they are just so badly misrepresented.

What do you guys think I should do and what would you do if this happened to one of your players?

By the way, if you want to see more patch cards from Topps Series 2, click here.

What to do with error cards?

Error cards were fun for a bit, I think.

The prices on error cards seemingly were pretty good for some time a decade or more ago. Quality control probably ain't what it used to be since every company in the country has had to do some form of layoffs and cutbacks.

I feel as though with every set that comes out, there are some type of errors.

There is this Delmon Young card that has an error on it. Can you spot it?

Yeah, that's not his auto. Derek Jeter stickers were mislabeled and put on this card instead of Youngs, which shows a whole other problem with sticker autos, but that's a blog for another day. This card is currently up for auction

There was the Cliff Lee from this year that the airbrushing didn't catch the HK patch on his jersey. Many cards have had the wrong picture of a guy on the back (Polanco instead of Pujols on his 2001 card).

On Twitter, DragonFan96 caught this mistake when Topps was showing off some pictures from the NFL Rookie party over the weekend on Facebook.

The logo on the card is of the Rams. Now, this card clearly has an error caught before it goes to the public, but since these are on-card autos and it may not be possible to get Suh to sign all those cards again, it's probably going out that way. Ugh, if only they had sticker autos ... oh wait. Yeah, see the conundrum on that one

Obviously, we can't stop this kind of thing and, inevitably, there are going to be mistakes because we all have faults and that shows up in our work from time to time.

Are there other famous error cards that you know about? If you do have an error card and the companies issue a fixed version, do you go after the fixed one too?

Cliff Lee Opening Day Error Follow Up

Just to let you all know there are now 60 different auctions for the Cliff Lee Opening Day card, and since last night they seemed to have dropped off to ending between $8-$15 dollars. Way to oversaturate the market all you guys that open cases (ahem, tntnorthnj who has about 20 up).

Good old eBay

Sometimes eBay is the root of all evil, and then there are times like today where you thank God for crazy people. Remember last week when Sooz posted about a Cliff Lee card with an error? Well... everyone was talking about this card this morning, apparently it was selling for around $50 on eBay.

I bought a couple of packs a week or so ago, put them in a pile and hadn't gone through them again... until this morning. I figured for around $50 I can take 5 minutes to check my stack of Opening Day. Lucky for me, I had one of the cards. I scanned it, wrote a small description, and put it on eBay. After listing it, I went to buy some lunch, ate and sat around reading the paper for a bit. When I went back to my computer before leaving for class the card sold and was paid for. Not bad for a card that came out of a dollar pack.

I figured I would share the fortune, and tell you guys to check your Opening Day cards and see if you can flip this "error" card into a hobby box of something or a bunch of singles.

How did this happen?

Since you all hate Derek Jeter, I am fairly sure that there are probably only 3 of us that have seen this card on eBay. For such an expensive (at least to me) product, I would like to think that the cards would be assembled correctly.

Check out this card.

Back later...

Upper Deck's Clinton Blunder

Upper Deck had a clever idea when it came to its political cards. Rather than just have a regular photo giving card lovers a regular card, Upper Deck produced illustrated parodies of the nominees. Most were funny, except one.

Upper Deck didn't think about it until the cards were already in the packs, how a picture depicting Hillary Clinton as Morganna, The Kissing Bandit would be offensive. I get that there are no women in MLB, but what about women who played baseball. A League of Their Own is a popular movie, it's not as though no one would have thought of it.

This card is rarer than the other presidential cards (1 in 8 packs) because after printing some felt the card would be offensive. So they pulled the card manually from packs, but some cards have made it into circulation. These cards are fetching a hefty price tage. We're talking four figures here -- $1,500-plus.

Upper Deck plans to have another Clinton for Series II in May. With the way Obama has taken over, who knows if she is going to still be a candidate.

The one I would like to get is Rudy Giuliani playing the role of Jeffrey Maier.