2004 Topps Baseball Forum

In the descriptions the ERR: Active Career Hits Leaders; light background and the COR: Active Career Hits Leaders; dark background can someone please explain this to me? I have never run across one of these cards, I don't know which one.

Light vs Dark

IMO, if these are legitimate they should be VARs instead of ERR and COR. Aren't these foilboard background? Is the dark version a printing flaw? Foil aging/tarnish? Scanners? Photos?

Looking on ebay you can see shade variances for others:

These are foilboard backgrounds. I've seen and bought multiple light colored background ones, but they all end up being a dark background. It makes me believe that there is no light colored backgrounds. With the dark background you can make it light depending on the scan or how the photo was taken.
 

More along a foil aging/tarnishing issue?  Looking at our 2004 Topps Hit Parade Gallery you can see scanner differences and some are photos.

forrest wrote:

These are foilboard backgrounds. I've seen and bought multiple light colored background ones, but they all end up being a dark background. It makes me believe that there is no light colored backgrounds. With the dark background you can make it light depending on the scan or how the photo was taken.
 

I really don't know if it's foil aging/tarnishing issue?

On the checklist of the 2004 Topps Hit Parade, only card #HP22 has a ERR. So there should not be any shade variances in your ebay examples, I believe it's just two different sellers scanning the dark background with different results.

I doubt those are legit variations. I'm 99% sure it's just how the foil shows up on different scanners. Unless of course someone has both variations and can show a scan (or photo) side by side.