Were Group 1 Subjects Printed With EPDG Before PD 350 ?

[Pat R]

Based on changes made in print group 1 there is evidence that the PD150's were printed several different times through out the group 1 printing. There are also noticeable differences between some of the 150 and 350 group 1 printings that indicate there were changes made before they were printed with the 350 backs. I'm not sure if it has been established when the EPDG backs were printed for the group 1 subjects but this Frank Owen print defect might be evidence that they were printed before any of the other 350's.

There is a dark spot on his sleeve that I found on twelve different examples
9 are PD 150's one is a PD? and 2 out of 4 different EPDG's have this defect.
Owen%20Dark%20Spot%20On%20Sleeve.jpg
Owen%20Dark%20Spot%20On%20Sleeve%20Crop.jpg
Owen E EPDG.jpg
Owen H EPDG.jpg

I think this Owen was probably on a sheet that was printed during the last PD150
printing.

It's possible that there are 350 examples besides EPDG but I didn't find any.
Here's the breakdown.

approximately 345 total (around 10 were actually scans of Owen Wilson)

PD = 197
SC =118
Sov150 = 16
OM = 4
EPDG = 4

PD150 = 9 out of 132 plus 1 PD? with no back scan
EPDG = 2 - 4
PD350 = 0 - 24
SC 150/649 0 - 21
SC 150/25 0 - 9
SC 150/30 0 - 14
SC 350/30 0 -7
SC 350/25 0 - 3
Sov150 0 - 16
OM 0 - 4

I didn't go through and break down the backs that weren't listed or didn't
have scans but all of the examples that had the spot were PD 150's or EPDG
with the exception of one Piedmont that didn't have a back scan.
Owen I Unknown Back.jpg

[Luke]

Yet another great post Pat, thanks!

I assume that EPDG was printed before P350 and SC350 backs based on the Elite 11 subjects. A guy like Tom Jones is not a tough EPDG, but is very tough in P350. It seems likely that those players were printed normally with EPDG backs, and then pulled from production later, during the P350 print run.

[steve B]

Very nice catch Pat.

Another interesting thing is that it looks like the Pi50 has a solid dot while the EPDG has a ring of color. The scans aren't good enough to figure out which might have been earlier (If it's a mistake being corrected or progressive damage.) Do you have any of the actual cards? The card with the crumpled nail always has an indent from the nail itself, and I would hazard a wild guess that the circle is the head of a nail that was working its way loose. If there's an indent then that's the likely explanation.

I think the P150's were at least three different print runs with slightly redone art between them. Three for sure, and maybe a fourth. I'm not sure that differences will be found for all the cards, so perhaps run 1 was done three times, run 2 only twice and run 3 only once.
The 350's as far as I can figure were a totally new thing and the art was slightly redone for at least some of the subjects if not all of them. I think we'll eventually see some really tough cards that I might technically class as wrong backs - cards with the 150 art but 350 backs.

[Pat R]

Originally Posted by steve B

Very nice catch Pat.

Another interesting thing is that it looks like the Pi50 has a solid dot while the EPDG has a ring of color. The scans aren't good enough to figure out which might have been earlier (If it's a mistake being corrected or progressive damage.) Do you have any of the actual cards? The card with the crumpled nail always has an indent from the nail itself, and I would hazard a wild guess that the circle is the head of a nail that was working its way loose. If there's an indent then that's the likely explanation.

I think the P150's were at least three different print runs with slightly redone art between them. Three for sure, and maybe a fourth. I'm not sure that differences will be found for all the cards, so perhaps run 1 was done three times, run 2 only twice and run 3 only once.
The 350's as far as I can figure were a totally new thing and the art was slightly redone for at least some of the subjects if not all of them. I think we'll eventually see some really tough cards that I might technically class as wrong backs - cards with the 150 art but 350 backs.

Hi Steve,
The Piedmont I posted is mine I don't think there's an indentation but I'll
take a closer look at it.

One of the EPDG's has the solid dot while the other has the ring and there's
also varying examples with the PD150's. My thought was that it was related to
how much ink was in that area. As you point out there might be a very small % of PD 350's with this mark that came from the run that produced the tough
350's that Luke is talking about like Lundgen.

Here's scans of the remaining 8 PD150's I found.
As you can see the spot is very faint on the last two.
Owen A PD 150.jpgOwen B PD 150.jpg
Owen C PD 150.jpgOwen D PD 150.jpg
Owen F PD 150.jpgOwen G PD-.jpg
Owen J.jpgOwen K.jpg

[steve B]

Those are really interesting. Especially the last two.

Usually a ring shaped defect is a fisheye, but it's usually a dark center with a light ring around it. The last two, especially the larger scan are like that, but the others are either the solid spot or the dark ring.

I suspect what's there is a drop of one of the platemaking chemicals that got there while the plate was being laid out. So the full spots are the earliest ones, the dark ring ones printed later after the original spot had a chance to wear, and the last two with light colored rings are actually an attempt at correcting the dark ring by stoning it off the plate. Basically erasing it with a limestone stick.
It could also be plate damage and/or a nailhead sticking up from the impression cylinder.

Steve B

[steve B]

Here's another Owen oddity. A recurring blue spot about in the center of the green area below his arm.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/1909-T206-Fr...0AAOSwal5YF5yP

http://www.ebay.com/itm/1909-T206-Fr...AAAOSwKOJYF5wl

Steve B

[Pat R]

Originally Posted by steve B

Those are really interesting. Especially the last two.

Usually a ring shaped defect is a fisheye, but it's usually a dark center with a light ring around it. The last two, especially the larger scan are like that, but the others are either the solid spot or the dark ring.

I suspect what's there is a drop of one of the platemaking chemicals that got there while the plate was being laid out. So the full spots are the earliest ones, the dark ring ones printed later after the original spot had a chance to wear, and the last two with light colored rings are actually an attempt at correcting the dark ring by stoning it off the plate. Basically erasing it with a limestone stick. It could also be plate damage and/or a nailhead sticking up from the impression cylinder.

Steve B

Because of the recent discussions I took another look at these. I have seen
where it was speculated that the printing of the group 1 (150/350) EPDG
subjects might have begun during the 150 series printing. If it could be
established (highlighted in red) that this is the reason for the differences in the dark spot on
the sleeve the two different variations in the EPDG examples could prove that
they were.

Steve,
If you had high resolution scans of two or all three different degrees of that
spot could you tell if they were the result of plate wear ?


On a comparative note the Group 2 (350) only Tolstoi's have a similar
pattern when you look at the numbers.

Most of the group 2 350 only subjects are tough and some of them are
extremely tough with a Tolstoi back. There are 314 different subjects
that are considered to be possible with the Tolstoi back. There are 65
subjects that are unconfirmed and all of them are print group 2 subjects.
One explanation for this could be that the printing of the Tolstoi backs
didn't start until later in the print group 2 printing.

I just started researching a group of three print group 2 subjects and
when I get the numbers together I will post them here.


Here are the different examples so far. The fifth one from
the left and the first one on the bottom left are the EPDG's
the rest are all PD150's.

Owen Group.jpg

also all of them have this spot that is missing Yellow.
Owenper20Darkper20Spotper20Onper20Sleeve - Copy.jpg