Quote:
Originally Posted by drcy
A few thoughts.
You could do tests on cheap Topps cards with white borders. They're lithographs too.
There are chemicals to dissolve printing inks-- and they've been known of. You can look them up--, but dissolving an ink and removing it clean from the surface without leaving anything or any damage is a different story. Duly note that dissolve doesn't mean making the ink invisible-- you can still see it.
I'd be interested to see how soaking or adding any chemical to the surface of a card changes its gloss and surface texture and shape. And what chemical residue is left behind. There are advanced, non destructive tests that can identify the chemicals. On the other hand anyone can smell bleach.
A question is did the original printers ink soak, if even just a bit, into the surface of the card, which would make it that much harder to remove without altering the surface. Again, dissolving doesn't mean making the ink invisible, and it would seem any sort of bleaching would be obvious.
Removing text can be done by anyone. It's removing it without leaving any signs of alterations that would be hard. After all, you can erasure off text, but that that can be seen with the naked eye. Forensic scientists tests inks on documents, but that involves physically removing small pieces (including paper stock) from the document and that can be seen on the document. If highly trained forensic scientists with masters degrees could remove a portion of the ink for testing without damaging the original document they would. They'd very much prefer not to damage the document and, if they could do it, would use it in their advertising that they have methods to remove ink without damaging a document.
If inks can be removed via solvent and wiping (or whatever) it could be duplicated by others. Meaning, duplicated by honest people seeing if it can indeed be done and report that it can be done if it can. Then, we'd see how this removal altered the card and what signs (such as chemical residue, damage to surface, other) give away the removal.
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The Topps cards were probably printed with slightly different inks. Some modern inks dry less than others. Like the "green" vegetable oil based inks used for many magazines which comes off on my hands.
Soaking will typically change the thickness of the stock for several reasons. The way people press the cards between books will make up for some of that, but it's possible the surface texture could change. The difference is usually very small, beyond the abilities of most people to accurately measure at home. Having a home machine shop I have some decent measuring equipment, and it's become inexpensive. Digital calipers that can in theory measure to 50 millionths of an inch can be had for $20 if you look, under 50 for sure. As a practical matter even measuring accurately to tenths of thousandths is very difficult. Holding a metal part for a minute or two will heat it and change the dimension.
I have a badly water damaged T206 I need to make some detailed scans of.
The entire front surface has cracked and begun flaking off.
The original ink shouldn't have soaked in on the fronts. The stock is coated with a clay like substance that limits soaking in, improves gloss and overall quality by giving a more consistent surface. The backs are uncoated. You can actually see this layer in the microscope pictures. You can also see how that surface isn't really all that perfect. There's a bit of pitting, probably original, and usually some very fine cracking and scratches which are aging and wear.
Plus the ink is more like grease and less like pen ink. Very thick stuff.
Looking at a couple light damaged T206s I bought (Some from the same lot have since been graded as missing color - Not by me.) Was not conclusive. I was expecting to see the gloss still present. One had it the other didn't. 40X magnification, and the cheap version of oblique lighting - holding it just so under the desk lamp.
I'm still figuring out some stuff with modern cards, like whether the glosscoat can be absorbed by the stock coating. An effect I've seen on some Topps cards. If it's absorbed, they've simply aged. If it can't be, then they were printed with different gloss layers. (Some more glossy ones definitely were)
As far as making a color invisible you should check out towards the end of the blue 58 Aaron thread over in postwar vintage. One of the guys selectively faded a 58 with a green background, removing nearly all the yellow.
If the brown used for T206s is a synthetic dye then it might be possible to fade it using his method - Not described in detail for obvious reasons. But from what he told me even modern inks used by Topps varies in its lightfastness.
Steve B