[bdkane72]

Hi all! Just a quick question: I noticed being a huge Chrome baseball fan the last couple of years, that they have a non-auto printing plate and autographed printing plate for players. So, I was wondering if they actually have two printing plates for each card? Thanks for any explanation you can offer.

[jonathani]

I would love to read the answer to this one. You only need one plate per color, so why put two on the market?

[Phillies_Joe]

Do they use different sts of plates plates for the base & refractors?

[randall44]

I believe they use the same plates for base and refractor, but different plates for the auto cards.

[ktcardshop]

They can make as many printing plates as they need. The plates will wear out upon use and sometimes the cards are printed in more than one location. Look at some of the early Donruss cards where half of the variations were printed differently.

K

[petillo64]

I'm not sure of this would require a separate plate, but there is the difference in the "certified auto" print on the card

[iconms]

I would think the auto version is slightly different and needs its own plate. It would have the space for the autograph and also say "topps certified autograph) somewhere

[wolverine74]

My guess is that 2 plates for each color are needed since Chrome cards are made of 2 pieces, the bottom being paper and the top being whatever material that makes the card "chrome". If this is the case then eight plates would exist for each card. I don't know if this is accurate, but it's my theory.

[DrMitchJ]

Look up rotogravure printing in Wikipedia and that should answer your questions.
Each card has 4 plates. If there are parallel cards, each card would have it's own set of 4 plates.

[ktcardshop]

Look up rotogravure printing in Wikipedia and that should answer your questions.
Each card has 4 plates. If there are parallel cards, each card would have it's own set of 4 plates.

We are talking about several different printing processes. Rotogravure is very different. It is a copper coated cylinder that has the images etched into it. It is expensive to make and only used for extremely long runs. It would not be practical to cut the cylinder into individual cards.

The plates used for cards are offset printing plates cut up into individual cards. There are several kinds of offset printing plates used depending on the length of run and cost.

1) Presensitized - An aluminum plate with a light sensitive coating that accepts an image for short runs. The plate is made from a negative.
2) Deep Etch - An aluminum plate with a light sensitive coating that has the image etched away with acid and replaced with a copper coating for medium length runs. The plate is made from a film positive.
3) By-level - Similar to deep etch except there are two layers of metal (Stainless Steel and Copper) which the stainless steel layer is etched away revealing a copper image surface for long runs. The plate is made from a film positive.

The longer the run the more expensive to make the plate. The shortest run cards would have been printed using the cheapest plate.

K