1991 Topps Baseball Forum

I completed you back in 93' chased a few errors but was done with you! Then I found TCDB and found those variations, well they are common enough so I'll pick some of those up when I have other trades and eventually work through them.

Don't look at Glow Backs....

DON'T LOOK AT GLOW BACKS!!!!!

Seriously, don't even think about Glow Backs. Most here have no way of knowing if they have GBs or not and it is not even in the list of variations in TCDB so you are risking your sanity chasing a GB set.

Why am I still looking at GBs.

Fine, I'm doing GBs now.

Hate being stupid but what are glow backs?

read this thread. There are a few others also in this set's Forum listings

1991 Topps Baseball Forum | Trading Card Database (tcdb.com)

Not a stupid question at all. I had no idea about them as well till last year. Topps printed some of  the 91' Topps cards with UV ink on the back, if you flip them over and shine a UV light on them, the UV printed ones will glow. Someone coined the term Glow Backs a while back but UV Backs may be more accurate.

Since it is impossible to scan and tell the difference between them TCDB can't create a separate variation set for them in the DB. Also unless you have a UV light you wouldn't be able to tell one from another, so many members are trading them but have no way of knowing which are which.

I took a couple quick pics with a special light. As you can see, the ones that show up with the red border under this light are the "glow backs" while the others do not reflect much light back. These are all card #360 (Raines). There are also regular logos and dark logos in that mix.

Every time I get tempted to start adding my collection here again, I make myself read about "VARs" like this, and I'm quickly cured.

I like this.

Don't worry - these are not getting added. If I were to scan those 9 cards, you wouldn't be able to see any difference. It was simply a different type of ink used, not different plates - and TCDB requires a plate change to call it a VAR, not a change in the type of ink (same color ink, just different formula). Based on the current rules, these are not eligible to be added here.

Dan, thank for those pictures, they were very helpful.

now these notes are in the forum for that set for furture inquiry

I still am not motivated to check my dupes though!

mark 

Not quite true. 2007 Press Pass Legends had red ink and blue ink signatures. Same plates, just different color ink. The reds were limited and do have a difference in the checklist.

But yes, in this instance I completely understand. Did anyone from Topps ever explain why they used UV ink? My only speculation is it was a test to combat counterfeits. Upper Deck had just come out with holograms to deter counterfitting. Maybe this was an idea at Topps but didn't go over well.