Didn't SGC (along with PSA) also encapsulate an Old Mill black overprint that turned out to be fake?

This may be why some people are still skeptical when a new Old Mill anomaly hits the market.

Old Mill black overprint apology forum

I'm not saying there has to be two of EVERY card. It just seems logical that cards from this particular set, of which probably hundred of thousands were made, there would have to be at least two of everything. Especially considering as I've said there are at least two of even the most extreme, semmingly one off printing freaks from this set (yellow and brown ink only cards, cards with huge color splotches across the fronts, ghost images, severely miscut half of one card half of another cards, grossly over-printed backs, etc.). There's no comparing cards printed for the T206 set to Tango Eggs or any other obscure type set when looking for variables or considering population numbers.

Edited to add we also know without a doubt that these cards were printed in sheets. That's why there would have to be at least two and why there are two of every other printing anomaly.

I looked for that post, but couldn't find it in the original thread. Was it in another one? The only way around the blacklight that I know of is very obvious, and I can't think of any way to make modern printing look like
the type of lithography used on T206s. It should be possible to duplicate the entire process, so I wouldn't rule that out.

I did post an explanation of how this card could have happened at the factory, but it was at the very end of the original thread. I've copied and pasted it below.

"Ok, so here's a theory- Or just a crazy guess if you want to call it that.

T206s are being printed, a batch of fronts are done and backs are being printed. Polar bear on one press, Old mill on another. It gets late in the afternoon, and the guy running the Old mill press realizes he's going to run low on ink a bit before quitting time. So he asks the guy next to him who's runnning a dark blue if he'll have any extra. He will, and shortly before quitting the first guy adds that extra to his ink reservoir. Blue mixes with the black he's running, making some very dark blue backs, and transitioning to a color close to the blue but not quite, maybe just a bit darker.
The day ends, the presses are washed down removing the days ink, and the handful of sheets slips by QC if there is any because the colors are close until the last few sheets. They're cut and distributed, probably not even getting into the same carton.

-Most pressmen do their own QC in the time I was at the print shop I only did QC once. And that was on a program for an event where we had to look for perfect copies that would be presented to the dignitaries presenting papers. Try finding 50-75 flawless copies out of 5000 of anything."


The pics taken at an angle that were posted in the original thread show the name and team as brown, at least on my monitor. Computer monitors aren't known for precise color rendering, and digital cameras aren't much better.

I'd love to see a scan taken at 800-1200dpi. The differences are really obvious at that level.

Steve B

+100

Hi Andrew-

I'm not sure how you are taking my posts- I'm only wanting to have a rational discussion about the card, I'm not trying to convince anyone that the card is real or fake, in fact, I have not used the word fake. But, you are correct, I am not following the herd on this one.

I highly doubt SGC's rep would be destroyed because they slabbed this card (if it did turn out to be a "Frankenstein") because they are only human, and mistakes will be made. I love SGC, and I prefer the way they grade cards. But that doesn't mean they are flawless and will never get something wrong.

And the same goes for the most respected names in the hobby- why would their reputation be on the line?? :confused: I'm missing that point.

What I am saying is that I would think before SGC slabbed this as a "Blue Back" they should have at least one other to compare it to- otherwise, I'd think they would just label it "Old Mill".......

Packs already made the points I would make, I feel like a broken record. For all those who say the card is the real deal-more power to you and don't mind me. If you want to spend thousands on it, by all means, have at it.

Sincerely, Clayton

Hi Steve-

Kevin did respond about the card in that thread, but not about a black light or a loupe..,I didn't word that quite right :o I should of said " and of anyone I could think of who would know how to get around those things, I would think it would be him" or something to that effect :)

I did read your post and it is a good theory, but it's like much of the mysteries of T206....we can try to make sense of things, but proving it is difficult,if not impossible. I tried for months to come up with some kind of proof (a theory I had) that the fronts of the cards were printed at the ALC and sent to the factories to have the backs printed on them "at the factories" but could not find anything to solidify my theory....I almost started a thread about it, I was pretty convinced that the 150 series had both front and back printed at the ALC but maybe the 350 and 460 series were shipped to the factories to have them print the backs (one color ink, one pass-as opposed to a six step process). After running this by a few people, I realized my theory wasn't right * although I still wonder :D*

Thanks for your response, I always enjoy your posts, very informative about printing processes-I learn alot from your posts.

Sincerely, Clayton

+1 And thanks for posting that link.

Sincerely, Clayton

You can put me on the highly skeptical side of the ledger. Based on nothing more than the obvious -- the color of the printing.

We now live in a T206 economy where slight deviations from the norm create huge prices. The incentive to create a deviation, coupled with the relative ease of creating only the slightest deviation, is so great.

I will take as a given that the Walsh is an authentic Old Mill T206 card. I will not take as a given that the color of the ink was blue when it left the factory over 100 years ago. I would need some additional circumstantial evidence.

This has been mentioned before, but some non-sport Old Mill cards have blue ink like the kind this T206 has. Take a look at the border around Walsh's portrait. That ink is also blue (not black), i.e., it's not just the back that's different.

If a typical hobby pattern holds, another one of these may appear. Many 'one-of-a-kind' items turn out not to be unique. We've seen this many times before. I'd be just as skeptical as some of the posters here if I hadn't held the card in my hand. But, I did, and I'm confident it's legitimate.


Bill

Good points, Bill. Maybe Chris will provide us with a blow-up of the front borders of a 'normal' Walsh vs this one.

Hey Bill,

Which non sport Old Mills have the same color ink? In person, this looks like the same color as T42 Old Mills?

Rob

Ah, that makes sense now.
It should be possible to add a UV blocker to get around the blacklight, but all the ones I know of would be very obvious.

And it's so true that a lot of the details about T206 or nearly every card set of the era will probably remain unproven. Unless someone turns up some paperwork from ALC or from ATC we can't know what was made when or in what quantity.

There's a lot of stuff I could pin down if I had access to some real science equipment. Like what the exact makeup of the black old mill ink was. Most black inks can't turn blue. Carbon particles in a hardener won't ever fade or turn, Iron gall ink fades brown, but not Brown OM brown and it wasn't used in lithography since it's not oil based. Some dyes can change. I vaguely recall making some stuff with my chemistry set that could be changed. But I've never seen it used anywhere and I'm not sure if it changed both ways or just from blue to black. (I seem to remember it changing both ways depending on what was added, but it was over 40 years ago)

And I'm constantly learning things that change things slightly. Like recently I found out that one particular printing of Stamps from New Zealand can be identified from another nearly identical one by the reaction of the paper to blacklight. One shows green, the other doesn't. And that printing was pre 1900. So some old papers do react, which I never knew.

Steve B

Steve B

Hey Rob -

Right, the T42 (Series 2) "Bird Series" has the Old Mill blue backs. We were trying to find one at the National to compare to the T206, but couldn't locate one. Those don't sell for $30K each, in case anyone's wondering.


Bill

Here's a link for others to see.

http://www1.coe.neu.edu/~dan/T42/backs.html

Rob

Hopefully scans of the blue OM will be available next week.

Creepy Walsh....with an unknown name on top....only example I got.

http://i.imgur.com/1h0gk.jpg

How about 25k, Bill?

That is not a good deductive argument against the legitimacy of any card. It has a formal fallacy. A good deductive argument has to have all true premises from which the conclusion is reached:

All men are mortal
I am a man
I am mortal.

The argument against the card is:

All genuine Old Mill cards are black backed
This card is blue-backed
This card is not a genuine Old Mill

Problem is, no one here has seen every Old Mill card ever made. The first leg of the argument is invalid. It is a fallacy of division variation: ascribing an attribute to every member of a class because every known member of the class has it. Doesn't rule out the exceptional cases within the unknown part of the group.

I am willing to be wrong. I am just stating a case and making points.

Chris,

If I were to take a guess at your "unknown name" Walsh, my guess would be Lumley, Brooklyn is the name on the top.

The two o's in Brooklyn stand out to me. After looking at the team checklist for Brooklyn I think the first letter of the player's name is an "L". That narrows it down to Lennox or Lumley. Just from what I see in your scan my money is on Lumley.


Jantz

I think you're right...
 

I think you nailed that one Jantz. Good eye.

Still no bid on it

http://www.hugginsandscott.com/cgi-b...l?itemid=51236

I would bet there is at least one bidder on the card. Especially after seeing some of the red hindu prices. I would imagine 15000 would be a bargain in some person's eyes.

In response to g vezina c55,

Considering how some (many? most?) people on this board have questions about the authenticity of the blue backed Old Mill Walsh and then seeing as how Mastro has been recently reported as going to plead guilty for various things (including card doctoring?) could we assume that the people who have the money to afford this Walsh are gun shy in pulling the trigger on it?

David

i saw all the thread on the board about this Walsh card.

Perhaps you are corect in your reflexion about all the accusation about mastro, card doctoring etc...

I am impatient to see if anyone will bid on this card.

Personally i have no opinion about this card, i never see it in real and never holded in my hand so i can t have any real opinion.

2 days left !

From the auction description....

Ah-HA! Respect our authoritah! :)

I agree that this auction will be a bit interesting to watch and see where it ends. The bar is set with the $15K opening bid, but I am wondering if this auction might do better with a lower starting number.

Do you think it will garner an opening bid?

I'm not sure it will.

AndyH

.

I think you need to find another before this one gets a bid that high. With a back like that, they would've ran off at least one sheet, so there would be others out there. Just one sheet seems unrealistic to assume though, because there really isn't an error here. They had no troubles letting piedmonts go from dark blue to light blue and every blue in between, so why would this set off alarms.

So until you find others, that price is a pretty big leap because the worst case scenario if they're wrong is you have an SGC30 Walsh with an Old Mill back. I might pay double the going rate of a Walsh to take the risk, but I'm not going 150x the price!

John, your read on this makes perfect sense to me, but along with all the board skepticism, there were also plenty here who gave it their blessing - guys who have the dough to back up their beliefs.

Assuming this goes for ONLY $15,000...as a T206 collector, if I had that much to spend on one card, this would not be the one. In fact, it wouldn't make my top 100 - and that's only for T206's.

I'll believe that someone is willing to spend that much when I see the bid placed. Until a second one shows up, it is a huge risk. This seems like a case where having more known copies is better, to a certain point obviously.

I don't think the starting price is too high though. If it was mine, I'd certainly want to sell it for as much as possible. I would hate to take a much lower number only to have a couple other copies surface, thus legitimizing the card and driving the price up.

This must be difficult for the consignor to watch. Hindsight is 20/20 and we've all made decisions that we've regretted, but turning down 35 Gs must be weighing heavily on him right now.

I think the card will sell, and not for the minimum bid either. I think there are deep pocket collectors who would purchase it for its uniqueness alone. With interest in the card ebbing, if I was planning on bidding, I would wait until the very last possible moment. I hope there is a flurry of late bidding activity for the consignor.

The hype is gone and so is the value of the card. The seller should have taken the money before. The card is just not worth 15k or anywhere near that now. We all have hobby regrets and I think this will be one of his for sure. Then again it's not over yet:eek:

auction end tonight !

We have a bid. Let's see if there are any other's in this race.

House of cards?

"House of cards? "

But they promised?!?!?!

It's a good test of ethics.

I think the consignor probably wished there weren't a bid, so that he could take the card back, and sell it at a better opportunity.

I always wonder how appropriate it is for us to discuss these things the day before an auction, when such a high dollar amount is involved. I wonder if the consignor or auction house have concerns about these discussions? Especially when none of us (who are discussing it) have any plans on bidding.

It's not like it's a fraudulent item that needs to be outed.

Here is an idea that is an off-spin of what I said. Maybe someone else already has one of these cards and this card legitimized their card. I could see someone bidding $15k if they already knew there was one out there, not everyone comes forward with new discoveries

REA sold a Tinker print error for 18k and shortly after the original example came to auction and went for 33k..maybe now is the time to buy :D

http://www.robertedwardauctions.com/.../2012/217.html
http://www.gregbussineau.com/media/PR/PR_1207.pdf

49 - 1909-11 T206 White Border Joe Tinker (Uniform Variation) SGC FAIR 20
33,720

I don't think there is anything wrong with discussing an auction on a forum like this. No matter what the item is. We would be talking about it around a table if we were all together. Granted this is more public, but why should that make it a no no to talk about the auction?

AndyH


.

I don't really think it's a 'no-no', but if it were my card, I'd be cringing - the recent discussions here couldn't be helping the value.

I like John's comment that maybe there's another one - if that were the case, I think $15K would be a deal.

Scott, I hear you. But I'm hard pressed to believe that we have that much influence on the market. Maybe I'm wrong though.

Also, what if there is another one out there and the owner of that other one just bought his second one. Now expose that there's two known and resell one for a killing.

Just a thought.

.

Well, that's the end of that.

Who bought it?

Some of the most likely buyers, imo, commented here that they were not interested at this time. So I don't think it was net54s fault. Just some people lost intrest.... It got cold real fast, is all.

Of course it's appropriate to be discussing an auction that a lot of us are interested in. The consignor and/or auction house may want us to or not want us to, but I am not sure why that is relevant at all. They are publicly auctioning an item, and the public is welcome to view the item, discuss it, comment on it, etc. That's how it is.

Discussions on this forum have affected my bids in some cases, for better or worse, and it's a good thing. More information and discussion leads to consignors and auction houses being more forthcoming and honest.

I wouldn't be surprised if the consignor bid on it, or if the auction house bid on it to "save" themselves from looking kind of silly - a flagship item of the auction not even getting a bid?

Who knows. Whoever got it though, nice card. I'd want it. Just not anywhere near 15K want it.

Call it a hunch... but I think we will see this card for sale again in the REA.. if not before.

Somehow I have the sneaking suspicion that we haven't seen the last of Mr. Walsh and his blue back.