I have a Tri Logo Wicket moc which has an odd image. From a distance it looks fine, but when studied close is quite poor quality. You can see different overlapping colour layers and almost looks like it's an old style 3D image showing blue and red layers.

Is it mean't to be like that or is it poor printing or something else.

Shrub in bottom right corner shows it most clearly.



You can see the blue edges around Wicket's face.

Hey Andrew,

I am fairly certain back then the cardbacks were printed using offset printing. Essentially the process uses 4 images printed on top of each other each one in cyan, magenta, yellow and black.
The alignment of the 4 images must be precisely laid on top of each other in order to yield a sharp image but if one or more images are slightly off, the effect you see is what can occur.
Generally the printer has a small mechanical issue that needed tending to -or- some external vibration occurred when one or more colors were being applied -or- just some other anomaly. I believe the term used in offset printing is mis-registration for this kind of printing error. My printing expertise is based on other technologies and I just have a basic understanding of offset so that's the best I can offer you there. I know dye-sublimation, inkjet, lasers and projection/lens based printers but any printing that doesn't lay down the image in one shot is susceptible to this type of mis-alignment.

Anyway............. since yours isn't too bad looking, it just cruised past QC at the printer. If it was way off, it would most likely fail QC.
There are a few other examples that are shown in the Palitoy 45 back Toy Toni threads.

Hope that helps a bit.

cheers!

Cheers. After seeing it, it did make me think that the prime colours were simply printed on top of each other to make the end colour image.

For sale. £1000 Super Rare Printing Error Wicket Moc.