The original purpose of this blog was to discuss anything baseball, fantasy baseball, or baseball card related.  Of that trio, I’m really the only one who currently has any real interest in the baseball card aspect, and since I haven’t posted much, there hasn’t been any card talk.  Until today.

A few weeks back, it was announced that there was an “error card” in the Bowman Chrome set coming out, as the Kosuke Fukudome was missing it’s autograph.  Well, Topps finally came out this week, and admitted that the card was out there:

“[We] inadvertently inserted a Bowman Chrome Kosuke Fukudome Autographed Rookie Card (which is not autographed) into packs of the recently-released 2008 Bowman Chrome Baseball. A total of 1900 copies were issued. Fukudome is not a subject on the Autographed Rookie Card checklist nor was he ever solicited as one.”

You can read about that here or here.  However, I suggest you read about it here–because that’s the first place I’ve seen a take similar to mine on it.

Seriously, Topps?  You want us to believe it was a mistake, and that you never intended for it to be an autograph card, despite the fact that the card has the design elements of an autograph card?

Wait–I do actually believe that you never intended it to be an autograph card–I believe you intended for it to be an “error” card all along.  A gimmick.  Another way for you to get some publicity for a set, other than just putting out quality.

It’s becoming all too common in the card hobby today–from the Alex Gordon rookie fiasco, to the Hillary/Morgana card, the Hillary/Barack card, the GW Bush/Mickey Mantle/Jeter card–all cards that weren’t supposed to get out (or designs that should have been flagged), but miraculously did (and let’s not even get started that two of those three examples are for POLITICAL cards).

Apparently, Topps & Upper Deck have the WORST quality control systems in the history of any company on the planet, repeatedly letting mistakes make it all the way from the design room to the printing process to the packing process and to dealers around the country.

And, of course, those mistakes just happen to generate buzz in the collecting community, and generate thousands and thousands of dollars in sales, as people bust cases of product trying to find the errors, so they can turn around and profit.

And, of course, the dealers and early collectors do profit–and then the collectors that end up paying $1,000+ for some of the cards find out that more of them got on the market than thought, and the value plummets.  And, to add to the fun–with the Fukudome “error” card, now we’ll probably have people forging his signature, adding another level of fraud to the card, and screwing even more collectors.

And for all this, Topps & Upper Deck have essentially exclusive deals with MLB, and Donruss can’t get it’s license back?  No wonder so many card bloggers seem so upset with the state of the hobby.

And, until MLB steps up and does something about it–like place some consequences out there for Topps & Upper Deck if these “mistakes” continue to happen, we’ll continue to see this semi-annual trend continue.