1992 Impel Marvel Universe Misprint

[DragonVT]

I bought a marvel card lot recently, and one of the cards is a misprint. The front of the card shows Multiple Man, but the back of the card shows Human Torch. I've never seen a marvel card with a mismatched front and back, and I was hoping someone could give me some insight into the rarity and value of an error like this. Thanks in advance for your help!

[DynaEtch]

Neat card. There is definitely interest in 90s Marvel errors. They get much more love than sports errors in my experience.

Make sure it's not just two cards stuck against each other, but doesnt appear to be from photos.

As for value....anyone's guess. Maybe there are some 1992 Marvel Universe super collectors who would really want it, you just dont know. The character Multiple Man will hurt value some (if this was Spiderman or Wolverine it would be much more sought after), but still as a typical 90s Marvel error you could be looking at $30-$50ish or even more. This is a total guess, only way to really tell is to auction it off. Errors are usually pretty unique so comps are difficult.

In my experience wrong backs are kind of middle of the road when it comes to errors. More sought after than minor errors like slight miscuts or a bit of foil missing, but lesser than egregious errors on the front of the card (double printed, wrong name on front, or some other major thing wrong with the front). I think the reason for this is you cant tell a wrong back error is even an error by just looking at the front of the card, you have to physically turn it over. But it is definitely a major error, and as card errors go, just as with currency and coins, rule of thumb is the more egregious the error, the higher the value.

[DragonVT]

Thanks for the insight! Yeah, I know Multiple Man isn't exactly a fan favorite, but it's good to know there's still likely to be interest. Since I only spent about $35 on the lot, it's pretty cool to know that I probably got my money's worth in one card. It's a pretty unique addition to my collection, so I was pretty excited to find it. Thanks again, and Happy New Year!

[DynaEtch]

Wow yea I’d say you did well then! I think it would be a great addition to a collection. In an era where some of these Marvel sets were really mass produced to the max, these error cards are quite hard to come by, and make any collection stand out.

Happy New Year!

[DynaEtch]

Here are the wrong backs I have.

1992 MM Thing vs Hulk with partial 3-D and 4-D on back



1992 MM Wolverine vs Sabretooth with partial 1-D and 2-D on back (have no clue how the Thing has Wolverine on back and the Wolverine has Thing on back)



Not a wrong back, but a blank front. Supposed to have the Venom hologram (1992 MU)



Also not a wrong back, but a miscut front (the back is normal). While it would be highly unusual to pull something like this out of a pack, these miscut 1992 MU holos aren’t all that rare and come up on the market decently often. A true wrong back base like the Multiple Man in the OP is much rarer imo for 1992 MU.

[Browns1981]

How do wrong backs even happen? Shouldn’t the top and bottom plates always be in the same order for the sheet?

https://imgur.com/gallery/2JYNKrr

Here’s mine, though I guess it’s technically a wrong front.

[DynaEtch]

That's a good question, and I was wondering the same thing. Maybe someone who know the printing process better could elaborate more on how this could happen.

That wrong front is just as crazy- how does that end up on the front of a cyclops back of all cards.

[DragonVT]

Those are pretty cool, thanks for sharing, DynaEtch! The 1992 MM's are one of my favorite sets. First base set I ever completed through pack pulls and trades as a kid.

I'm not certain how some of these errors happen, but basically the machine operators loaded mismatching artwork. You would have printing plates for the front and the back, and someone loaded plates that don't match, so you get what we see here.

Your MM errors are probably from someone failing to align a plate properly during setup. It's also possible that the plate got knocked out moved during a run, but that seems unlikely since they are pretty square on the other axis. Finally, it's possible that some scrap product from print testing/setup made it through cutting and into retail packs.

[Grid]

Originally Posted by Browns1981

How do wrong backs even happen? Shouldn’t the top and bottom plates always be in the same order for the sheet?

https://imgur.com/gallery/2JYNKrr

Here’s mine, though I guess it’s technically a wrong front.

We are talking 30 years ago, but the same holds true for many printers now.

Sheets usually get printed, and then fed back into the printer for the reverse.

These are not coins, which get stamped top and bottom at the same time. Its print one side, sheet comes out. Flip sheet, and print the other side.

For obvious reasons, you dont make the front and backs right away. You do a bunch of fronts (or backs) and then refeed the machine to print the reverse on them.

Just pulling numbers out of the air, but the 1st sheet of 96 cards comes out, and are held in a stack. Eventually, when all the "fronts" are printed, they will form a big pile.

The next sheets of 96 comes out next, and go into their own pile. Now, you have all the base "fronts printed"

Those are then fed back into the press, to print the back. Sometimes, you could have a sheet or 2 from the 1st 96 fronts, get mixed in with the sheets of the next 96 fronts. Those 96 cards, will have the wrong backs.

This is not an issue with "common" backs. IE, things like poker cards or Pokemon where all the backs are the same.

[DynaEtch]

A few more misprint backs, this time modern.

2008 Marvel Masterpieces series 3 without the UD hologram on the back. This is a little known variation, although you do see them out there. I can confirm each card of the 90 card set was made in the hologram-less variation (I have the set).


2016 Marvel Masterpieces base/legendary orange



It’s a regular base (front and serial numbered) with the misplaced text of legendary orange on the back. I used to see these pretty often around release, but not so much anymore. Clearly UD messed up here, but I’d be curious to learn more about what exactly was going on with these. How many base characters did this happen with? What serial numbers? Did it happen with purple? Curious about the extent of the mixup.

[DynaEtch]

Picked up this 1994 MM Carnage Holofoil misprint. Probably paid way more than I should have, but these are the kind of cards that are right up my alley.




It actually went through ebay authentication, so they apparently do authenticate error cards (I wasnt totally sure what would happen to it, but good to know now).



I think there is something that happened to the Carnage's during production of this set. Unless it's a coincidence, the only such extra-foil errors I've seen so far are both Carnage, shown below: regular card in middle, next to the errors. In fact whenever I see something wonky going on with these 1994 holofoils, which is very rare, it seems more likely to be Carnage. Wonder how this happened.

[Watchmee]

Just picked a lot of 17 cards from this set that have the wrong back/front combo error



... now i need to wait to get them in my hands and decide if they are worth grading or just list them as raw singles

[DynaEtch]

Duuuuude, you outbid me on it Man that’s a dream lot….

Congrats on the pickup, great price too if you piece it out per error. I thought it was very rare to see someone have so many wrong back misprints in one lot. I wonder if they opened a box and just got error after error in a few packs? Can you imagine that.

If you do decide to grade, remember PSA doesn’t grade misprints and will reject them. Gotta go to like CGC. When you have them in hand would love to hear what they’re like…I’m assuming they are bona fide errors.

[Watchmee]

Originally Posted by DynaEtch

Duuuuude, you outbid me on it Man that’s a dream lot….

Congrats on the pickup, great price too if you piece it out per error. I thought it was very rare to see someone have so many wrong back misprints in one lot. I wonder if they opened a box and just got error after error in a few packs? Can you imagine that.

If you do decide to grade, remember PSA doesn’t grade misprints and will reject them. Gotta go to like CGC. When you have them in hand would love to hear what they’re like…I’m assuming they are bona fide errors.

BTW I picked from the same seller also a v.large lot of 90's Marvel cards (www.ebay.com/itm/296566155263) so I'll need to review that lot carefully for additional errors because from the few photo in the listing I see that quite a few cards are also from MU'92...

... and that large lot was the only reason i decided to check what else is on-sale from the same seller and stumbled upon the err listing... if it was not my search for more inventory over the weekend you had all chances to pick these 17 for 10.49, but at least now I would assume that the seller is happier this way

Alex

[DynaEtch]

That’s a sweet comprehensive 90s lot, that’ll be fun to go through and see if you find any errors.

Yea we totally made that sellers day on the error lot I’m sure….almost went for $10
Still a very solid deal.

[Watchmee]

One more catch from this 1992 Marvel Universe misprint of mixed front & backs:

While searching through a lot with couple of thousand MU'92 cards I got lucky and found one more misprint that has a different pair of front and back from those 17 I posted about earlier (see post #12).
"Combo" this time is
Front: Spider-Man & Sleepwalker (#95) &
Back: Beast (#6)


New catch is listed on eBay https://www.ebay.com/itm/205048578160

Alex

[DynaEtch]

Wow that’s a neat find- even in a couple thousand cards, it’s not likely to find a misprint like that.