question about OPC Blank Backs

[icefields]

hi
i remember back in the old days seeing a couple blank back cards from OPC.
i thought they were just error cards, nothing special.
but now i am learning that they have a special place in the OPC playbook

so are they simply a short printed parallel card ( and if so any way to know approx. number) with a multiplier

or are they just an oddball card individual player/team collectors cherish

[Rraincock]

The old school OPC/Topps blank backs were part of the printing testing process. They were usually thrown in the garbage. Some of them were cut up either by hand (laser assisted!) or possibly used to test cut. They are very rare, but not 1/1s. Graded in 9 or higher, they always command a nice premium compared to the same card properly printed. Blank fronts sell for less than Blank backs... but blank fronts seem to be rarer. There are other interesting cards that have one or some of the CMYK color passes on them, or with one of the colors out of alignment (sometimes by more than an inch). I suppose blank front and backs are possible... but how you would determine what the card is (a mule?) or when it was issued is beyond me.

That said, the new OPC blank back program seems to be at about a case hit ratio (+/- a few cards a case). The are rare... maybe less than 50 copies each, but not as low as 5 or 10. Be careful as some of the box bottom cards from the Walmart blaster boxes are also blank back (alternate fronts, usually a parallel or retro) but aren't nearly as valuable as the pack pulled blank backs.

[30ranfordfan]

@Rain™™™™ explained this pretty well. Back in the day..... they were tests from the printing process. They were not intended to make it into collections, but some did. Either via packout (mistake) or uncut sheets (that later got cut up).

Since UD started making Blank Backs - they have been an "unannounced" parallel. Personally I've never been a fan of that (tell us what's in the packs!) so they don't even release stated odds on those cards, much less print runs.

They do seem to be "case hit" (ish). Some people will tell you there's 5 copies, others will say 10, others come up with a bigger number. There is no way of knowing for sure. I suspect there has been a year or two where they were very SP'd (i.e. 5 copies) but most years that's not been the case. Probably at least 10 copies, I'd be surprised if there's more than 25.

[RGM81]

As others have noted, since 2008-09 the Blank Backs have been a regular but unannounced parallel in O-Pee-Chee. Additionally, since 2018-19 they have also been releasing Red Border Blank Backs, which are even more rare than the pack-inserted Blank Backs. These Red Border Blank Backs are stated to be 1/1's in the 2020-21 product, though in prior years they were SSP's as part of the Wrapper Redemption program.

Over the years I've been able to get the Blank Banks for my Gorges PC for almost every year that they were released. I have yet to see Blank Backs for 2014-15 and 2015-16 for him, though. You can read into that one or more of the following: OPC was opened at a low rate, the Blank Backs were SSP'd those years, people weren't really paying attention, Richard fell asleep on eBay, etc. There have been years where I have multiple copies of his Blank Back, so who knows for sure.

[icefields]

thanx guys/gals for all your input
i can always count on SCF members to know about this hobby.
peace

[Savard18]

Older blank backs and blank fronts are really difficult to assess because they can be on purpose or just errors. Either way the older blanks obviously weren't inserts like the modern blanks. The older ones were produced for a variety testing reasons and never really were supposed to have been leaked to collectors.. I mean blank fronts and blank backs really aren't all that interesting, tho I do have a few but they're of players I PC so I gotta have them, lol.

A while back I had a Collectors Edge serial numbered black front Mark Brunell that somehow found its way into a pack.. Obviously that card was clearly an error considering it was serial numbered - it was definitely a unique card and I would assume a 1/1.. I actually sold it to another SCF user that's a Brunell supercollector.

Of course there are also 89/90 OPC "white backs" which are pretty rare and generally are valued at 75x the base issue.. But these are pretty well known and were "test issues", and honestly - at least in my opinion are difficult to recognize because they're just a shade lighter than a regular 89/90 OPC issue.

Then of course you have Upper Deck, and back in the day shady dealers and collectors would erase the printing off the backs and fronts of cards with just a regular pencil eraser, then advertise the cards as "super rare errors" then sell them for 50 times what they booked for - and the crazy part is that it took a while for collectors to catch on to the scam - and this was during the "error card craze" of the early 90's so a lot of collectors got ripped off... It's pretty crazy how easy it was, take a common and use the eraser on the end of a pencil and you would be shocked how easily the ink comes off of early 90's UD cards, and you would think that Upper Deck would have done something about that with their ink or how they printed their cards but they didn't do anything.. SMH