While mint condition correctly printed baseball cards can sell for hundreds or even thousands of dollars, some of the rarest and most valuable cards are misprints featuring errors in production. Misprints are anomalies that slip through quality control and ended up in packs sold to collectors. Their scarcity and uniqueness make them hugely desirable to advanced collectors looking to own the rarest examples of certain cards.
One of the most famous and valuable misprint cards is the 1921 American Caramel Ernie Courtney card, considered the first-ever misprinted card. Only one is known to exist and it features the image of Courtney rotated 90 degrees to the left. How this anomalous card was produced is still a mystery close to a century later. It sold at auction in 2016 for an astounding $108,000, setting a record for a misprint card sale. The misaligned image makes it one of the strangest and rarest cards in the hobby.
Another hugely valuable misprint type involves “blank back” errors, where the printing process failed to imprint stats or other text on the back of the card that should be there. One such example is the 1959 Topps Brickhouse Jimmy Piersall blank back, which has been known to sell for over $30,000 when in top condition due to its scarcity. Only a handful are believed to exist out of the millions of 1959 Topps cards produced that year.
Newer errors from the modern era can also gain significant value with time and rarity. One such card is the 1999 Topps Chrome Refractor Alex Rodriguez short printed error, which is identified by missing the “Refractor” designation on the front. This error makes the card exponentially rarer than the regular refractor version, and high grade examples have sold for around $15,000-$20,000 in recent years. They remain among the most valuable 1990s error cards.
Miscut cards, where the image is sliced off unevenly compared to a normal cut, are another type of error highly sought after by collectors. A dramatic example is the 2013 Topps 5 Star Clayton Kershaw dual autograph miscut, where the image bleeds dramatically off the sides and top of the card. There is also an extra sliver of Kershaw’s face visible at the bottom. Only one is known and it sold for $15,000, an astronomical return for a relatively modern card due to its one-of-a-kind miscut anomaly.
Collation errors, where the card stat/info doesn’t match the player pictured or where cards are inserted out of agreed upon sequenced order, are some of the most complex errors to authenticate. One example is the 1909-11 T206 “Pie” Traynor card that was actually depicting Max Carey in uniform. Only a few are believed to exist and they sell for upwards of $30,000 when CGC or PSA slabbed due to the difficulty of proving them as errors without comprehensive checklists.
Perhaps the most famous and valuable modern rookie card misprint is the 1985 Fleer Michael Jordan with a black vertical line through his face and name. Only two PSA 10 Gem Mint examples are known to exist and their error makes them exponentially more rare than run-of-the-mill 1985 Jordan rookies. One sold for $99,763 and the other was purchased by collector and NBA team owner Mark Bartelstein, showing their status among the true pinnacle cards in the collecting world.
While mint condition correctly printed star cards will always be valuable, true misprints that correct the printing process and end up being one-of-a-kind errors can achieve astronomically high prices when they involve the rarest players and lowest production numbers. As time passes and more vintage misprints are lost or become slabbed and part of collections, the few extraordinary examples that remain have proven they have staying power as some of the most desired trophies for the most elite vintage card collectors. Their scarcity and anomalies make them almost museum-worthy within the hobby. As such, the ceiling seems to be rising every time a new price record is achieved for these often bizarre yet irresistible misprinted rarities.
