Clean Your Plate!

Ahh, the printing plate. The hobby's runt version of a 1/1, created to lure more collectors into buying cheap products. Let me express how stupid I think inserting printing plates in packs is. Why do I want this piece of trash - literally - that you want to call a 1/1? Fine, slap an auto on it, surely it becomes more desirable but still less so to me than a normal auto'ed card.



Right now there are hundreds of printing plates listed on the world's greatest marketplace - most of which have an abundance of exclamation points in the title. These things usually sell for some cash, especially if it has an auto stickered to it. That baffles me as to why people want this colorless display of your favorite player. First off, it is not a 1/1. At best it is a 1/4, but when triple threads does it, the plates are 1/16. This is because each card requires 4 colors to generate color photography, black, yellow, cyan, and one other color (depending on the process). They use the plates, one after the other to put the colors into place on the card during the printing. Eventually after all the layers are applied, the photo is color, and everyone is happy. Funny enough, the plates you get in the packs are pretty clean considering what they are used for. Plus, as stated before, who says these things are actually used (remember, all is not what it seems).



Ebay sellers want you to think that these "cards" are the bee's knees, but in all reality, they are just another way to further the spread of the 1/1. BMB people often refer to these pulls as the m-word and I think they are fucking idiots. Printing plates arent even completed cards, and they sure as hell arent pretty. I remember UD took it a step further with 2006 Ultimate football, when they had the actual card with a cut out of the plate underneath. This was so ugly that I wouldnt touch them with someone else's 10 foot pole. What's worse is I think I even saw a Mantle cut auto printing plate out of co-signers one year that made me question why the fuck they cut up a Mantle document for this fugly piece of shit.

There really are very few times where they actually work, and I wish that companies would think twice before sending these out with the products. Why not fill the set with cards that are actually good looking, creative, and worth my time. THAT would be an idea to bank on.