A Leader Of A Different Color

Disclaimer: This post has nothing to do with Obama or the US presidency.

The other day, I got (another*) specimen of the card below that was on my want list for 2003 Topps.  I've had quite a time building this set.  Let's just say Topps learned its lesson about UV coatings on this one.  It started with a box of Series 1 that was so stuck together, most of the cards came out with "snow" on them.  I sent it back to the dealer, who was very gracious and sent another.  The second one wasn't as bad, but still had some frosty ones.

I also noticed that some of the "special" cards in the set seemed to have two different colors.  The regular player cards are mostly a deep shade of dark blue, with some slight variation.  But the League Leaders, post-season, and All-Stars seemed to come in both dark blue and this other shade of turquoise.  I've started to keep both versions in my set.

I suspect that this may be a "factory set" thing, or something like a parallel set.  Haven't seen any documentation about it though.

Then, I get a third variety with this card #339.  It's a shade smack in the middle of the other two.

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, over...?

The top one actually has speckles of the darker blue as well as the "snow spots".  Is this just a really radical printing variation between two plants?  Or is it just another consequence of Topps discovering they used the WORST UV COATING EVER?.

Anyone with a viable theory, post a comment.

* See previous post about list gremlins.