What is a Collectible Trading Card Printing Plate?

The hobby of trading card collecting is still alive and well. The card manufacturing companies come up with all sorts of new and zany ideas to move their trading cards off of shelves and in this article I am going to cover one of those: Printing Plates!

A printing plate card is a one of a kind collectible and it is exactly what it sounds like: a printing plate. These are the plates that are used when the sports cards are being created. They are are dipped in the color of ink needed and then applied to the product being made. The printing plates are a square of metal; usually with rounded corner) with the photo image on it that will appear on the card. In more modern versions there is a sticker on the back labeling it to let you know what color the plate was used for and from what set it was. Some printing plates will be displayed in card stock frames to spruce them up a bit and some will even have a full back on the rear of the metal. An example of the first is Allen and Ginter Baseball Mini cards and of the latter would be Sports Illustrated Swimsuit trading cards. Generally there will be one plate for each color used in the card printing process. So, even though your trading card printing plate is labeled one of one in existence, it means only for that color. Usually there are around four of each plate out there, each having done a different color job though. In some cases there are even more, as some companies have fabricated printing plates on a larger scale, perhaps to take advantage of the item as a specialty to chase; this is the case in Sports Illustrated Swimsuit trading cards.

The market and value of printing plates can be tricky. Some people are turned off by the fact that you get a piece of metal, often with some machine damage to the edges and a colorless picture of the player on the front void of detail. Sometimes the front will be smeared with dried ink. In the case of popular superstar players or the hot rookie of the moment, none of the above seems to matter and buyer want to scoop up the one of a kind printing plates at a high cost. However, when you are dealing with lower end sports players it is actually quite cheap to land some printing plates below ten bucks.

I think printing plates are awesome. I view them as the God of all of the other cards created in that set of cards. This is the one that gave the rest life, the master card if you will. I also enjoy them from the collectible standpoint of they go beyond the card trading market. These items were used in a machine and therefore can be considered a different type of antique in the future beyond , which might perk the interest of people who are not actually into sports or card collecting. Any flaws to the metal that would normally drive the value down on an actual sports card is character and dried remains of ink, well, that is just as exciting as getting some dirt on a piece of game used material embedded into a card; once again: more character.

Check out some printing plates and if you are interested in starting a collection, there are deals to be had in places such as Ebay. You can find all different types of plates, even very high end ones that they have embedded game used sports materials into or slapped autographs on to. I find them to be a unique item for the hobby and have started my own collection, mainly in the realm of baseball; though there are some metal pictures of ladies in swimsuits slipped in there too.