Card Identification Forum

I recently picked up a 5000 count box of 1980s Topps commons to swap into my hand-collated set. As I was going through I noticed that one of the KC Royals team cards was missing the 'mgr JIM FREY' name across the top of the card. I have five or six of these in the box itself, this was the only one missing the ink. I have not seen any others, nor have I seen any other forums discussing this particular card as having a missing ink variation, although there are a few other cards out there apparently, with Greg Pryor being the most known. Has anyone come across this particular variation in the past? 

Your pic/scan is a little on the small side, but it looks like there could be some ink loss in the blue frame around the picture up there.

Also, tilt the card in the light. Is there a loss of gloss there? A regular pencil eraser can remove the ink from the fronts of cards of that era. I have seen examples of this.

Thanks Dan. I did the full check for manual manipulation, nothing from what I can tell. Card looks clean, no scraping or eraser marks that would be tell-tale signs of the ink being removed manually. Gloss in the area appears okay as well. Only downside I've found is, as it's a team checklist,  the back of the card is marked with ink :(. 

I might just send it to PSA for grading and let them look at it under their high-powered microscopes to see if it was removed post-production. 

Wasn't sure if you knew about that possibility. Best of luck with it.

An interesting trivia item I saw about that card: since it's a 1979 team photo, Whitey Herzog is in it, which means the "Jim Frey" card doesn't even have Jim Frey on it!

Hmmm, now that is an interesting fact. Can't be that Topps also figured that out and decided to remove the Jim Frey indication knowing that Frey wasn't in the actual photo? Would have to think if that was the case then more of these would be known to the market than just the one I've stumbled on. But definitely adds to the intrigue!

Don't get you hopes up. After 40 years on the market this type of thing would be well known/publicized by now. And don't give others ideas about trying to enter certain things in here.... But, if you are in jest I have a bunch of 80T in my garage and some erasers.....

Seems there are more known 1980 Topps cards with missing ink above and beyond the Pryor card. I came across this post while researching https://www.net54baseball.com/showthread.php?p=2013786#post2013786. For example I see a Doug Bair and Marty LaCoss on his images with no ink showing where the name would be. I've never seen those cards listed in any guides or online as a missing ink variation, so hey, you never know  I cross-posted in there to see if anyone is monitoring and can add some insight.  Good luck with your erasers, jimetal7212, I appreciate your thoughts. 

I have the Bair and the Pryor in my collection, although I've never seen a LaCoss in person.  Something else to look for.  The printing issues with the names is a pretty common thing among the 1980 set.  There are at least a dozen cards with some sort of issue with the names.  I hadn't seen this one before.  Bummer that the checklist is marked on the back.  Cards like this typically sell for $20-$30 if they are in good shape.

Since this is the only post similar to the subject...1980 Topps (MLB) cards #164, 387, 547 & 597 are listed as ERR/COR.  Shouldn't these just be ink issues?  Errors / Variations - 1980 Topps Baseball | Trading Card Database (tcdb.com)