I started a thread on 1940 Play Ball Color "Proofs" about six years ago after finding seven of these cards. Last week, I chimed in on another post about the same subject. As a result of my interest in those cards, a longtime collector and Net54 lurker who some of you might be know, Dwight Chapin, sent me this 1939 Play Ball card of Merrill May and asked what I thought about it. So I'm posted it here in an effort to see what board members think.
My first thought is that its artwork very much resembles the 1940 "colorized" cards. While the artwork isn't perfect, it seems unlikely that an artist could have achieved such precision on a small, absorbent piece of cardboard with a brush and paints. As for the notion that the color was added in recent years using modern technology, I have this email from Dwight regarding its origins ...
"I have no record of when I got the card, but I've had it for decades. My best guess is I acquired it sometime in the 1970s, very likely in one of Frank Nagy's auctions, or through the Charles Bray mail auctions, Bray was the successor, more or less, to Jefferson Burdick, and ran sales through a publication called Card Collectors Bulletin."
I've posted one of my 1940 cards for a comparison. Also, here's the thread on the 1940 cards ...
www.net54baseball.com/showthread.php?t=152184