Have the art scans from the infamous missing pieces ever surfaced?

[ToadallyDude]

I haven't had Wackys on the mind for a few months, and then was poking around while waiting for an email response today... and found this:

https://ournostalgicmemories.blogspot.com/2013_02_01_archive.html

There are a lot of sites mentioning Wackys out there by people who aren't really collectors, but just recounting the 70's and nostalgia.
But as "Hostile Thinkies" was always one of my favorites, I clicked on it, and it appeared to be from the artwork, not the sticker.  It was really clean.
But that title was one of 30 or so in a particular lot (which was missing, and certainly must have surfaced by now), and I'd never seen scans of anywhere.
So, is this a real scan of the art... or did someone just clean up (very well) a scan of the sticker?

There are other lost lots of artwork out there, too, which would be interesting to see suddenly surface now.  The original Wacky art could almost be the subject of a mini-series on TV.  But it seems to have been very very quiet for at least 10 years as they've all gravitated into maybe 4 collections.  (I'm speaking of 1-16 OS stuff... not the ANS+)

[koduck]

The Thinkies web image has definitely been altered digitally (the black border is certainly a giveaway), but based on the quality of the image, it's hard to say if they altered the original art or a sticker (note the artifacting on the image). It's even possible that they scanned the image from the Abrams book and used descreening to remove the dot pattern. But without a higher res image, it's hard  to tell what the original source might be.

[ToadallyDude]

Thanks for the analysis on this one.  I was sort of on the fence, too, but it's the cleanest I've ever seen it.  Eventually, it would be so cool to get crystal clean scans of all the art, and have them fully touched up to remove all the blemishes & flecked-off lettering, etc., to have some kind of online museum of the pieces in their original state.  I wonder if anyone's going to release scans as NFTs at some point.  I suppose the owners of the art would have the right to do it... but not sure how Topps would handle that, though.

[JasonLiebig]

Thanks for the analysis on this one.  I was sort of on the fence, too, but it's the cleanest I've ever seen it.  Eventually, it would be so cool to get crystal clean scans of all the art, and have them fully touched up to remove all the blemishes & flecked-off lettering, etc., to have some kind of online museum of the pieces in their original state.  I wonder if anyone's going to release scans as NFTs at some point.  I suppose the owners of the art would have the right to do it... but not sure how Topps would handle that, though.

No, owning the art conveys no copyright or legal rights to monetize the copyrighted work - you just own the artwork. Of course, if someone (like Topps) wanted to create NFT's out of the original artwork, and they didn't have high resolution scans, the owners of the artwork could charge them for the privilege. 

[ToadallyDude]

No, owning the art conveys no copyright or legal rights to monetize the copyrighted work - you just own the artwork. Of course, if someone (like Topps) wanted to create NFT's out of the original artwork, and they didn't have high resolution scans, the owners of the artwork could charge them for the privilege.

Ooo... good point.  With all the sports card NFTs out there, kinda makes me wish I'd kept mine.  A lot of the Wacky pieces were sold damaged and since repaired, too.  So, unless Topps kept really high-res film scans of the pieces before they got damaged, they'd need the art probably.  Not sure anyone would pay for an NFT, though... and the current original art owners probably would be pissed about that too.