Mets Card of the Week: 1982 Tom Hausman

1982 TOPPS BLACKLESS TOM HAUSMAN

Printing errors are a funny thing.

Due to sketchy quality control and inattentive vendors, printing variations are commonplace on Topps baseball cards from the inception of the brand through at least the early ’90s. It’s a veritable feast of random dots, blobs, and fish eyes…

But every so often, a printing error gets codified by collectors, makes its way into reference books, and sees a significant price increase.

A well-known example is the 1958 Pancho Herrera card. During one of the print runs, the final “a” in Herrera’s name began to degrade, until eventually most of the “a” was obscured. These late-state errors are known in the hobby as Pancho Herrer cards, and even one in poor condition will set you back over $1,000.

A more recent example, featuring a more prominent player, is the 1990 Frank Thomas No Name on Front Variation. At some point in production, there was an oblong obstruction that prevented segments of black ink from being added to a range of cards on a specific printing sheet.

Many of the affected cards contain odd washed-out background elements as a result of this printing anomaly, but the Thomas is the most stark example, with his entire name missing from the thin blue parallelogram on the card front. Add to this the fact that this is the rookie card of a superstar and now Hall-of-Famer, and you can expect to pay $1,750 or so for a nice copy.

One prominent error that impacted a number of Mets cards is the 1982 “blackless” variation. Nearly half of the 1982 issue can be found with cards missing the black-ink elements on the front.

A typical 1982 Topps card contains a player facsimile autograph, and a thin black border around the photograph– cards such as this “blackless” Tom Hausman are missing both of those features:

This error is recognized by the Standard Catalog, with the Nolan Ryan booking for over $400; even a common like Hausman lists for $10-$12…