Faded/Colorless/B&W M116s on Ebay Recently
 

Recently there was a large group of m116s up for individual sale on Ebay. I noticed that the colors on some of the cards were nearly nonexistent. Below are a couple of photos so you can see what I mean. The three cards on the right were cards I purchased that were from this group. The Murray on the left is a card I already had in my collection.

So what could have caused this amount of inconsistency with the color? The residue on the backs of the three makes me think the cards COULD have been soaked. In addition, the yellowing of the borders makes me think that while being soaked, the color bled into the borders somewhat.

But what do you all think? I do see m116s every so often that just seem to lack color altogether. As if, some of the cards just aged poorly and could have faded/yellowed potentially due to humidity or sunlight exposure. So I suppose that could be another strong possibility as well?

Thanks in advance for the thoughts/comments!

Thanks Brian for posting these interesting colorless M116 Sporting Life cards. One of the advantages of being a lower condition collector is the ability to post on threads like this one. I have multiple M116 cards that are colorless (more than shown), and each one has evidence of some sort of scrapbook damage, as is seen in the top row in the scans below.

I included the bottom row of cards that might help someone more adept than I to figure out the likely cause of this colorless condition as seen.

The Hartsel has toning on its back, but possibly was not glued into a scrapbook, and its front retains normal M116 coloration and borders are not toned.

The Overall appears to have been taped to a scrapbook or something similar, but the front does not exhibit toning, but instead staining throughout the front except for the upper right. And it retains it colorization.

The Rucker has evidence of scrapbook removal on back, but unlike the cards on the top row, it does not have that even toning on the front, and retains some of its color.

The Delahanty and Seymour exhibit all the attributes of the cards on the top row, but interestingly each has one border that has a straight line strip where no toning exists.

So people, put on your thinking caps (I know I left mine in the closet, but I can't seem to find it).

Brian

I ain't a glue expert, but a lot of scrapbooked cards have color problems on the front as a result of the gluing. Many of these are listed as printing defects and sell for large sums of money to people who want to believe. It's just damage, like a 58 Topps Hank Aaron in blue.

+1
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What do people make of these two cards in particular that each have a strip of the original white border? The Delahanty has a tack hole at the top. In the past I have seen cards that were pinned up and suffered damage to exposure to light, and have areas that were not affected because something else (possibly other cards) overlapped the card. But the Seymour doesn't have any pin or tack holes.

Something to ponder...

Brian

What ever they were laying against caused the shadow, sulfur free versus paper with sulfur content, most likely the cards on the opposite page were faced with the edges on the area where the card remains white.