The 1959 Topps baseball card set is regarded by collectors and enthusiasts as one of the most error-filled issues ever produced by the iconic trading card company. From miscut cards to missing team logos and swapped player photos, the ‘59 Topps release showcased a stunning array of manufacturing mishaps. While most error cards from the set aren’t particularly rare or valuable on their own due to the magnitude of mistakes made that year, they remain a captivating part of sports card history illustrating how even the most established companies were still honing their production processes in the late 1950s.
One of the biggest problems plaguing the ‘59 Topps set stemmed from misaligned printing plates that caused many cards to be drastically miscut during the mass production process. Rather than trimming cards cleanly along guidelines printed on the gum sheet material, errors saw portions of an image bleed onto an adjacent card. Some miscuts were more minor showing just a sliver of a player photo, while others showed as much as 75% of two separate cards all on one. The miscuts occurred seemingly at random throughout the 652 card checklist. Some of the more notable miscuts include a Sandy Koufax partially showing up on a Nellie Fox and a Vic Wertz bleeding onto a Dick Groat.
Another widespread printing issue involved the team logos found on most cards which were meant to identify what franchise each player belonged to. It’s believed fluctuations in ink levels caused many logos to either print very faintly and sometimes not at all. Among cards missing team logos were future Hall of Famers like Ernie Banks, Willie Mays, and Eddie Mathews. Not only did this detract from the basic information and aesthetics offered on each card, it also made accurately identifying certain players more difficult for collectors even familiar with the players.
Beyond cutting and logo faults, a smaller scattering of cards contained incorrect photos of the wrong player entirely. One of the most famous photo swaps saw Rocky Colavito’s image mistakenly placed on Harvey Kuenn’s card and vice versa. Other mistaken identities included Bill Virdon and Vada Pinson, Bobby Shantz and Bobby Del Greco, Early Wynn and Lew Burdette. While such large mixups affected only about a dozen cards tops, their impact is magnified because they paired the image of one star player with the statistics and info of another entirely.
1959 also held its share of more seemingly random individual errors. Arnie Portocarrero’s card was printed with the team listed as “None” since he was traded midseason and hadn’t joined his new club yet. Cal Abrams saw his position unintentionally listed as “RF” when it should have read “RP.” There were even a small group of cards with missing player signatures that were intended spaces as a unique feature for that year.
Of course, not all the printing snafus resulted in what would be considered true errors. A number of variations emerged too from shifting inks and plates through the long production run. Many researchers have debated where to draw the line between an error versus an uncommon parallel. Examples of notable variations include cards showing team logos printed in different locations or colors than the “standard” version.
Regardless of the specific printing flaw or how extensively it changed the intended design, the unmatched degree of defects that infiltrated the 1959 Topps set gave rise and life to a whole subset of the hobby obsessed with finding and cataloging all the mistakes. Though individual error cards may not be worth a fortune, collectively they serve as a reminder of both the humanness of the manufacturing process and how even multimillion dollar companies were still progressing technically in baseball cards’ early days.
