Bill Ripken

4 Expensive Baseball Card Printing Errors – Modern Edition

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I previously shared 6 Expensive Baseball Card Printing Errors with a focus on vintage cards. This piece will focus on the same concept, baseball card printing errors, but with more modern cards. Here are four cards where both an error and corrected version exist in the post-war card market.

1990 Topps #414 Frank Thomas (No Name on Front)

The 1990 Topps #414 Frank Thomas No Name on Front card is one of the most famous cards in the hobby, period. Certainly, it’s one of the most important modern error cards and a must-have for collectors with large bankrolls. Frank was a superstar player when baseball card collecting was near its peak. He’s a Hall of Famer who retired with 521 home runs and a .301 batting average to go with two AL MVP awards. The printing hiccup has been speculated about, and no one has unraveled the mystery as well as the user BunchOBull on the Collector’s Universe message boards.

Essentially a piece of card-stock got in the way of the black printing dye of a few uncut sheets of cards, affecting about ten cards, with Frank Thomas being the most notable. 

The No Name on Front version has a PSA population of 289 (up from 207 in 2020) compared to 23,923 (up from 14,278) Name on Front variants. The last sale of a No Name on Front printing error, from PSA’s APR, was $5,049 for a PSA 4 on eBay, with PSA 8s going for well over $10k. Goldin sold a PSA 10 for $170k in December, 2022. In comparison, a PSA 10 of the 1990 Topps #414 Frank Thomas card with his full name printed on the front, is around $65. PSA 8s of the Name on Front variant can be found for under $10, less than grading fees!

1990 Topps #414 Frank Thomas No Name on Front
1990 Topps #414 Frank Thomas Name on Front

1989 Fleer #616 Bill Ripken F**k Face

Fleer didn’t notice that the Bill Ripken card they released had an obscenity written on the bottom of the bat he was holding. It spelled out, “F**k FACE.” After the company became aware of the error, they released subsequent printings with the words obscured. First, they had a blob of what appeared to be Wite-Out, then a pen scribble, and finally a black square. Ripken admitted that he wrote the words on the bat to spot it easily as his batting practice bat. Ripken also believes that Fleer couldn’t have missed the error and suggested that they enhanced it to generate extra publicity.

You can read more about the five Bill Ripken #616 cards in my piece about how to pull the error from wax boxes.

1989 Fleer #616 Bill Ripken Black Box Over Error
1989 Fleer #616 Bill Ripken Black Scribble Over Error
1989 Fleer #616 Bill Ripken FF Error
1989 Fleer #616 Bill Ripken Scribbled Out In White
1989 Fleer #616 Bill Ripken Whited Out Vulgarity

1987 Donruss Opening Day #163 Barry Bonds (Johnny Ray)

The Donruss Opening Day set was made to focus on each team’s starters on the opening day of the MLB season. The 1987 Donruss Opening Day Barry Bonds card was initially printed with an image of Johnny Ray but was corrected pretty early in the printing process, making the error quite rare.

3,123 corrected Barry Bonds cards exist with PSA 8s selling for $10 and PSA 10s for ~$250. The Johnny Ray error has a total population of 172 (up from 135 five years ago) with PSA 8 copies selling for ~$800 and PSA 10s going for between $3k and $4k, but I did notice that Fanatics sold one for $8,550 in May, 2023, so they may be way higher, they’re just not that common (PSA 10 pop count of 14).

1987 Donruss Opening Day #163 Barry Bonds Johnny Ray Error
1987 Donruss Opening Day #163 Barry Bonds

1989 Upper Deck #357 Dale Murphy Reverse Negative

While the 1989 Upper Deck Ken Griffey Jr is the most iconic card in the set, the Dale Murphy may be the most infamous. A version with the image reversed was released. The error is more common in graded form only because the regular variant doesn’t command popularity. Upper Deck said about 2% of the cards have the error. And who knows if it was intentional, to create hype for the set, or not.

959 Reverse Negatives (a nearly doubling of the population in five years from 508) and only 547 corrected (up from 249 in 2020) variants are in the PSA population report. A regular PSA 10 sells for $35 while the reverse negative in GemMt condition sells for closer to $600.

1989 Upper Deck #357 Dale Murphy Reverse Negative
1989 Upper Deck #357 Dale Murphy

The collectibility and high prices of modern error cards mirror those from earlier in the post-war card era. Collectors continue to value errors that are unique, rare, and frankly, get engagement when shared online.

Happy collecting!

Pulling the Bill Ripken FF Error from 1989 Fleer Wax Boxes

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I first discussed the 1989 Fleer Bill Ripken #616 FF Error card in an article about expensive baseball card printing errors that was focused on modern cards. In it, I wrote that “Fleer didn’t notice that the Bill Ripken card they released had an obscenity written on the bottom of the bat he was holding. It spelled out, “F**k FACE.” After the company became aware of the error, they released subsequent printings with the words obscured. First, they had a blob of what appeared to be White-Out, then a pen scribble, and finally a black square. Ripken admitted that he wrote the words on the bat to spot it easily as his batting practice bat. Ripken also believes that Fleer couldn’t have missed the error and suggested that they enhanced it to generate extra publicity.”

The 5 Bill Ripken #616 cards have the following populations and approximate prices:

  • Black Box Over Error – Total Population of 3948 – PSA 8 for ~$18
  • Black Scribble Over Error – Total Population of 1572 – PSA 8 for ~$30
  • FF Error – Total Population of 15464 – PSA 8 for ~$70 (The card everyone seems to want these days)
  • Scribbled Out in White – Total Population of 130 – PSA 8 for ~$500+ (A lot of Variance)
  • Whited Out Vulgarity – Total Population of 163 – PSA 8 for ~$480
1989 Fleer #616 Bill Ripken Black Box Over Error
1989 Fleer #616 Bill Ripken Black Scribble Over Error
1989 Fleer #616 Bill Ripken FF Error
1989 Fleer #616 Bill Ripken Scribbled Out In White
1989 Fleer #616 Bill Ripken Whited Out Vulgarity

Now, if you want to pull a 1989 Fleer Bill Ripken #616 FF Error card from a pack, you need to buy a case or an authenticated box from a trusted source with the right provenance.

There is a 5-digit number printed on 1989 Fleer cases. The case you buy needs the right numbering on it, or the box needs to list the 5-digit number of the case it came from. In the picture that follows, 83422 is printed in black ink on the lower right side.

1989 Fleer Baseball Case – Code 83422

The first digit is the print year, 9 for 1989, and 8 for 1988. The next three numbers represent the day of the year. 001 is for January 1st, 004 would be January 4th, and so on. The last digit is either a location or a shift. 

Digits before 90171, January 17th, 1989, have the Bill Ripken FF error inside. I’ve been reading that the error has been verified in cases up to 90191, but I haven’t seen that myself.

The next two pictures and the case above will have the FF error since their codes are under 90171.

1989 Fleer Baseball Case – Code 90161
1989 Fleer Baseball Case – Code 83281

This 1989 Fleer Wax Box, authenticated by the Baseball Card Exchange, came from a case with code 90122; therefore, it may have a FF error inside.

1989 Fleer Baseball Wax Box BBCE Authenticated FASC Code 90122

The next two pictures are of cases that will not have the FF error since their codes are above 90171.

1989 Fleer Baseball Case – Code 91571
1989 Fleer Baseball Case – Code 90961

If you pull a 1989 Fleer Bill Ripken #616 FF error from a pack, let me know in the comments.