What is up with the back of this T206?

[Orions father]

Hello,
Bought this Rube Marquard PSA 3 (no qualifiers) Sweet Cap 460 overprint off of ebay several years ago and was suprised to see the back when I got it. (Yes, I bought it without seeing a scan of the back) Anyone have a guess to what happened to it. Some sort of shellac? Different paper stock? Left to sun damage on the dash of a Model T?

[Bicem]

looks fake, not saying it is, but it does have that fake look to it.

[dennis]

probably not stored in an ideal setting over the years.ie attic/bsmt

[barrysloate]

I've had many T206's with backs like that. It's just the way the paper has reacted over the years to the elements. Maybe it spent its life resting on a newspaper, or some other acidic surface. Who knows? But it is real.

[Bridwell]

It has badly faded color, combined with a dark toning as if it was exposed to a lot of smoke perhaps. I've seen some clever reproductions that look like this. Surprised PSA graded it. If the PSA case was not tampered with, then apparently they thought it was legit.

[Leon]

Can we get a front scan shown?

[cfc1909]

Ma was cooking breakfast and Pa was having a smoke from his freshly opened pack of Sweet Caporal cigs. Threw the card on the table where it gathered some grease from whatever and over the years the dirt stuck to the card and gradually soaked in and here is the result 100 years later....

[FrankWakefield]

I think the card was in a scrapbook that had paper sheets with a significant lignin content. Think wood pulp paper with a bit of acidity. With the passage of time the paper turns brown. A Sporting Life newspaper from 1910 looks fine today, generally. A 1930 Sporting News is most likely brown and a bit brittle or fragile.

Many T206s were once in scrapbooks. And the cards were soaked off of the pages at some point in time. This is especially true of T206s with nice corners. That's not a popular, embraced concept by most collectors of graded cards, but I'm satisfied it's true, nonetheless.

[Orions father]

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[teetwoohsix]

The card looks legit to me, I think Barry is right about the exposure to the elements,,,,,,,,,,although I like the Model T theory too

Clayton