1990 Pro Set Football Forum

I see a lot of sellers on ebay trying to hawk 'rare error' 1990 Pro Set fb cards with white dots, lighter ink borders, etc, claiming them to be 'rare' error variations. I feel printing variations, and not 'true' errors that were corrected in later print runs, are just that....PRINTING ERRORS! The color of ink or a smudged print to me does not equal what most of us consider and error/variation card, and are hardly worth the prices some are trying to get!

"Rare" is one of the favorite words for many people on EBAY. Most of the time the item is not anything close to rare, but as you said just minor print variations. Best thing to do is ignore them and just collect what you want. 

Agreed.  In some instances, I think these people are crooks.  In other instances, they might be legit sellers marketing these printing variations to the people out there who actually do pursue those.  I guess, for a person who specializes in Pro Set cards, once you have everything, a white dot might matter to you.  They aren't making any more Pro Set cards, but it is the nature of a collector to want to collect more, so maybe they feel compelled to look for reasons to buy more of the same cards they already have.

There are two things in eBay titles that pretty much makes me skip a listing (unless I know the price is actually reasonable):
"Rare"
"BV" (Book Value)

If I see either of those, then I'm dealing with somebody that probably bought a bunch of Beanie Babies in the '90's expecting to be a millionaire now.

Pro Set errors are about as rare as snow on Mount Everest.  What's rare are Pro Set cards without errors; printing or otherwise.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!

:D :D :D

So true! That's why they didn't last very long. Pacific was in the same boat for those few years, but finally got it under control and started making significant sets, especially the mid and late 90's inserts. 1991-93 Pacific base sets were as bad as Pro Set was from 1990-1993. I thought Pro Set had the better designs of the two during that period, but they just couldn't limit senseless errors. Pacific lived on into the current millenium while Pro Set died.

All I collect now is Pro Set, I'll only get smudge / wrong colour ones if I buy a box or a card lot, variation error ones for me are where you get something different like wrongly printed stats and correct version otherwise I would never get them all, have noticed on the 1989 set some are printed dark and others lighter but there's no way I would try to build two sets, rare wise for pro set would be unredeemed cards ( have a 1991 platinum Paul Brown coming) and there 1991 autos plus some promo / prototype cards and binders (can't find a 1992, 1991 fact or 1992 super bowl ones)

Heard a lot of dumpster diving went on behind their printing shops back in the day. They certainly didn't need more flawed stuff getting out with all the errors/variations they already had though.

I just saw a seller the other day that had re-packed errors/unreleased/variations, had even gone so far as to have them in new wax packs, and a fancy box.

Tried to put that insane '90 FB set together back then, had a good bit of the variations, in pages in a binder. Gave up and just pulled them all out, and boxed that mess up in a 1,000 count box. Have thought about getting the 338 Dickerson, and 75 Cody Risen now that they are cheap, but still don't want to spend more than a buck or two each.

I should have an extra Risien. Message me your address and I'll send it to you.