Quick Look: 1991 Upper Deck Milt Thompson “Bullseye” Error

Here’s a rare sighting, a printing flaw that even Beckett and SCD acknowledge in their catalogs: 1991 Upper Deck Milt Thompson #309A with “bullseye” over 86 stats on back.

Most “fish-eye” printing flaw stuff doesn’t get cataloged and for good reason,as it would be impossible to list each and every printing aberration in mass-produced sets. However, some of them seem to have affected enough of the total print run that collectors from all over were reporting them, Frank Thomas NNOF and Joe Namath’s ‘butterfly’ errors are good examples of this. But see the pattern? These types of errors only get recognition if it affects a key rookie card or star player, something of a double-standard. There are probably a hundred cards out there from the junk wax era, as rare as the Frank Thomas NNOF card, that will never see catalog and subsequently mass-collector recognition, which makes this card an obscure exception to the rule. Very scarce by early-90s Upper Deck production numbers but still, at the end of the day, a printing flaw on a Milt Thompson card.

New 1991 Upper Deck hologram variation discovered! That’s 5 different types now!

This weekend I came across a small collection of Nolan Ryan stuff. Mainly just base junk with some oddball sprinkled in, but as always, I flipped over the 1991 Upper Decks included, to see if any of the rarer hologram types were printed on back.This time it was a hologram that looked familiar but didn’t fit any of the 4 known types. It turns out, its the hologram UD used for it’s 1990-issued, Comic Ball 1 set. Keep in mind that these variations scan terribly, but in person are easily recognizable:

Ughh. Those scans are awful, but the best I can get for the time being. The actual pattern is what appears to be a series of trophies, the words “upper deck” and “90.” And the Comic Ball set is the only UD issue that I could find matching this. Pretty fitting that I find this variety on a Nolan Ryan card when he would eventually become a spokesman for the Comic Ball line in 1991.

To recap the already-known hologram varieties (see my in-depth, previous blog on them for details):

-1990 MLB type: This hologram is the exact same one used on UD’s 1990 cards. A pattern of baseballs shows up when held under the light.

-1990-91 NHL type: This hologram has a crossed hockey sticks and ’90-91′ pattern if held under the light.

-1991 MLB, NHL, NBA, NFL type: This hologram is the most common, and shows a pattern of ‘1991 Upper Deck’ when held under a light source.

-1992 MLB type: This hologram depicts a pattern of UD’s diamond-logo and is commonly found on most 1992 issued card sets. Funny that these were being found on 1991 cards!