Common Football Reverses

There are a decent number of reversed images in the 1960 Topps and 1961 Fleer Football sets. Credit to Vintage Football Card Gallery (footballgallery.com) for information on these.

1960 Topps #20 Doug Atkins UER (pic on left). Atkins wore #81, as evidenced by the card on the right.

1960 Topps #61 Bill Wade UER

1960 Topps #65 Del Shofner UER (pic on left). Compare to card on right.

1960 Topps #97 Frank Varrichione UER. Frank wore #74, which is clearly reversed on this card.

1961 Fleer Wallet Pictures #18 Chris Burford UER. Compare to correct pic on right.

1961 Fleer Wallet Pictures #21 Dan McGrew UER. Compare to correct pic on right.

1986 Fleer Team Action #70 San Diego Chargers Human Cannonball UER.

1987 Fleer Team Action #49 San Francisco 49ers The Rush Is On UER. I like both of these Fleer Team Action reverses because they are wide-angle action photos which you don't see a lot of in reverse negative cards. They are usually just pics of single players, and the amount of detail in these action photos is really nice.

1988 Topps 1000 Yard Club #8 Curt Warner UER. Backwards #28 on the jersey, backwards "Visitor 3" in the background.

1989 Score #176 Brian Blades (UER, back of card). Brian wore #89 for the Seahawks, and it looks like the 8 in #89 is on the right side in the card.

1990 Action Packed All-Madden Team #37 Merril Hoge (back, UER). The #33 on the card is reversed.

1990 Action Packed All-Madden Team #41 William Perry (back, UER). The "C' on the helmet is reversed.

1990 Action Packed Rookie Update #58 Eric Green (back, UER). The "Steelers" on the hat is reversed; you can tell from the backwards S at the end of the hat.

1990 Pro Set #603 Alex Gordon (back, UER). Reversed #55 on Gordon's shoulder.

1990 Pro Set #608 Mickey Shuler (back, UER). Reversed #85 on Shuler's shoulder.

1991 Bowman #313 Kirk Lowdermilk UER. For certain sets in price guides, UER's are listed without a description of the error next to the card listing; it only says "UER." 1991 Bowman is one of these, and I was able to discover the Lowdermilk by looking at each individual UER scan.

1991 Pacific #465A Bubba Parris (reverse pic on the right)

1991 Pacific #542A Mike Croel. I couldn't find a scan of the corrected version, so I am using the 1991 Classic 4-Sport card as an example, since both cards use the same picture.

1991 Wild Card #17 Drew Hill UER. The #85 on the jersey is reversed.

1991 Pro Set Platinum #105 Burt Grossman (back, UER)

1991 Pro Set Platinum #194 Ed West (back, UER). The "G" on the helmet and 6 on the jersey are reversed.

1992 Stadium Club #614 Tony Sacca (back, UER). Backwards #19.

1993 Playoff #114 Brad Baxter UER. Backwards "Jets" on helmet and "30" on shoulder, front of jersey.

1993 Playoff #120 Art Monk (back, UER). Backwards #81 on jersey.

Join me next time when we look at common reverses from basketball and hockey cards...

Common Baseball Rev Negs

Here are some of the common baseball reverse negatives that collectors know from price guide checklists. They are easy to find online (except for the Hostess Bailor, which still evades my collection and annoyingly is never available in the times I remember to look). If you have a card shop near by that has a lot of junk wax lying around, chances are a few of them will be there.

1954 Bowman #209 Gene Woodling UER

1962 Post Cereal Canadian #71 Gene Woodling (The Canadian error version is on the left and the American version is on the right)

1963 Topps #8 AL Pitching Leaders (The Ray Herbert pic is reversed--it has a backwards "Sox")

1979 Hostess #105A Bob Bailor (on the left). I don't currently have a scan of the corrected version, so I threw the 78 Topps up there for contrast, which is the same pic.

1981 Donruss #444A Buck Martinez (on the right). Early Donruss and Fleer sets were a gold mine for errors.

1981 Fleer #382A Kurt Bevacqua (on the left). Look at that sweet backwards P.

1981 Fleer #493A Tim Flannery (on the left). Flannery, a lefty, is batting righty in this one. Even without the corrected version, you can tell because the front of the jersey starts with a backwards "p" and the "SD" on his batting helmet is inverted.

1982 Donruss #544A Phil Garner. This is one of my favorite ones because it shows so much detail.

1987 Topps #108 Jim Ganter UER. I estimate there are roughly 373,490,511 copies of this card in existence. If anybody tries to sell you one for more than 2 cents, don't accept it.

1988 Pacific Legends #19A Elston Howard (on the left). Another case of the dubious left-handed catcher.

1989 Fleer Superstars #10 Kal Daniels UER. Kal was not a righty, the "C" on his helmet is backwards, and the Reds logo on his jersey is on the left side of the shirt, whereas home Reds jerseys always had the logo on the right side of the shirt.

1989 Score #135A Ray Knight (on the left). So many clues. Knight is in the gray Tigers jersey, which would have had "Detroit" on the front, but the "t" is at the beginning. He played first base, and in the reversed pic he looks like he is playing 3rd. He was also left handed, and in the error he is righty (you don't see many right-handed first baseman).

1989 Score #120 Cecil Fielder (UER, back photo, on the left). The front is correct but the back of the card is reversed. Of all the teams I have seen in reversed negative cards, the Blue Jays and Yankees figure the most. If you ever see a Blue Jays card with the blue jay in the logo facing to the right, it is a rev neg.

1989 Swell Baseball Greats #13 Harvey Haddix UER

1989 Upper Deck #583A Mike Gallego (back photo, picture on left). Along with the Bailor, this is the least common of the cards in this post. Was completely overshadowed by the Murphy reverse from the same set, and presumably not as rare as the Murphy. He was a shortstop, but looks like he's playing second base in the pic. Also shortstops tend to be right-handed.

1990 Donruss #10A Brain Downing Diamond Kings (photo on right).

1990 Score #491A David Wells (back photo, pictured on left). Remember when it's the Blue Jays logo, left is right and right is wrong.

1990 Swell Baseball Greats #77 Marv Throneberry UER. A Yankee: the "N" in "NY" is backwards and the logo is on the left when Yankees shirt logos are always on the right.

1991 Classic Draft Picks #8 Shawn Estes UER. Nice backwards 5.

1991 Fleer Ultra #360 Joe Carter UER (back of card, top posing photo). Another Blue Jay.

1992 Fleer Ultra #48 Jerry Browne UER. The clues: the feather in the Indians logo on his helmet is on the left, when the actual logo always has it on the right. Browne is a righty, but batting lefty here. A more subtle one is Indians white home jerseys had the word "Indians" on them, but the only clear letter on his shirt in this pic is the "A" and it's on the left side of the shirt, whereas the "A" in real life is on the right. Price guides list the error on the card as the back photo, but that is wrong: the back photo is correct and the front photo is the reverse. A lazy typo that never got corrected.

1992 Fleer Ultra Award Winners #21A Cal Ripken Jr. Photo is on the left. The tail on the Orioles logo is facing to the left in the error; Oriole logos should have the tail facing to the right.

1992 Topps Stadium Club #262 Mike Simms UER. Usually the type of reverse that goes unnoticed, whoever discovered this error had a good eye. The clue is that the "o" in "Astros" is on the left side of his shirt, when it should be on the right.

1994 Pacific Crown Collection #447 Ron Darling UER. I knew about this error for years before I actually saw it. It's not like it's an uncommon card, but I could just never find a copy of it.

1995 Fleer #76 Don Mattingly UER. The "N" is backwards, Mattingly is not right-handed. This is one of three Mattingly reverse negatives I have found; the other two will come in a later post.

Stay tuned for the next post where I will start to get into  other sports.....