That's entirely too complex a process for a print shop to make money on the job, or for that matter even get the job if they quote it based on that.
It's 5 passes through the press, which means 5 plates, 5x the handling, drying time etc.
Instead of 3, red pass, black pass, gloss. (I'm not certain all 210s got gloss. )
doing a job at a roughly 40% higher cost just isn't a path to profit.
The name looks like a bar, because the black is printed high in relation to the red frame. If it was done as a separate pass, there would be differences in the location of the name.
It is possible that they might have used a semi-transparent red, and occasionally printed black first. That's not standard practice, but I have seen it on at least one modern card. (81 Fleer Star Stickers that are light blue instead of dark blue have the black under other colors. ) I'd have to have a bigger sample than the few T210s I have, but I see enough that have names that appear less clear and strongly black than usual, which is what a black first printing would look like. (I actually have to check mine, but I don't recall any like that. )
Quote:
Originally Posted by Vintagecatcher
That last card is a great example which shows the black printing phase was done after the "border framing" as it clearly shows the black on the sox is over the bottom red border.
So it seems the production sequence would progress as follows:
The black and white photo images were printed on a sheet. A bar with the player's name and team was added below each image. That bar can be clearly seen in Jason's Hick freak T210. The individual player images were then framed by the border, which was normally red with the exception of the Series 3 cards that were printed in orange. The bottom of the border frame normally covered the player's name and team name.
Black "highlights" were then printed to give some cards further contrast.
Then lastly a gloss coat was added.
Here is a scan of my George Cowan T210 which is a good example of a T210 that had a black highlight step in the printing process. Not all T210s had this step.
Patrick
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