Pretty In Pink

Dropped the girls off at school yesterday, it was my off-Friday, then stopped by Target because I was in dire need of some Cap'n Crunch. Stopped at the card aisle and grabbed two 99-cent packs of 2011 Topps Opening Day.

While eating a nice big bowl of Cap'n Crunch, I opened the first pack of cards. Nothing awesome but some nice cards and a couple inserts. Then I opened the second pack and got to this card of Brian Roberts:



Something seemed strange about it. "Pink?" I thought. I dont recall pink being a banner color. I took the card and went straight to my box of 2011 Topps looking for another Roberts or at least another Oriole. Couldn't find another Oriole Opening Day but I did find a regular issue Oriole and when I compared the two, blammo!


Printing error.

"Cool" I thought, "I like printing errors."

I got back to the rest of the pack I was opening and the very next card was this one of Mark Teixeira:


Rut-roh, I'm seeing pink again. Back to the box of Topps. No other Teixeira but I found a Brett Gardner Opening Day with a very similar background.



Two printing errors in the same pack? I quickly checked for another card with an upside-down airplane on it (any philatelists out there know what I'm talking about) but there were none.

Holding the cards just right reveals what looks like the old wax stains Topps left on vintage cards, in this case resulting in color loss.

The final piece of detective work led me to align the cards side-by-side, and when I did so, ta-daa, the waxey-looking pink area in one flows right into the other. These cards must be side-by-side on the sheet.

I'll leave figuring that one out to another blogger.


Cool, two more cards to add to my printing-error binder.