John,
No offense taken, actually I consider it a badge of honor that you actually referenced me in a post. I took out my handy loupe and started looking at my T206 Red Cobb and the bold red that you see in the background is on his lips, by his ears, and a small smidgen by his eyes, but his cheeks are a different shade of red. Thus, the pigmentation is different which would then affect the fading. If the red used on his cheeks were on the background, then the background color would not have faded so badly. I've attached a picture; notice the red on his lips. eyes, and ears are the same as in the background, yet the red on his cheeks is a different shade. I sure wish one of the printer guys would chime-in!
T206 Red Cobb2.jpg
Red will almost ALWAYS fade first, it happened on the Star-Spangled Banner and it happens on T206 cards. Here is a short article about fading:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/charters/fading.html
Lovely Day...