Robert, where did I say most or mention any percentage of cards with color variations are due to just UV damage?

I'm simply pointing out That UV can be a cause and is not something that is never seen or some odd occurrence that is hardly seen as announced so boldly by Ted and his statement.

I would also disagree with you that T206s aren't sitting in the sun, folk art and displaying cards either glued, pinned or stuck up was common use for these premiums upon issue. Cards don't have sit in the sun for 100 years to be affected.

Cheers,

John

Fair enough. But I believe it is an odd occurrence and it's rarely seen. I've handled a ton of them and I know you have too. How many have you had that struck you as altered by the sun?

Robert quite a few have struck me as sun/UV, glue, chemicals or something else since you ask.

Finding true missing reds that are bold minus the red isn't an easy thing. I think that's why I own so few them. But that's just my experience with T206s and the set.....

Donie Bush
 

Clayton, I used to own a Donie Bush with a bright orange background. I didn't think it was faded and no evidence of soaking or glue. It seems to me it was missing a red color pass. The card was a PSA 4, I believe.

I currently have an Abstein PSA 5 with the similar bright orange background.

Thanks Ron!

I appreciate the input. I've seen quite a few of the Abstien cards with this orange background. It's hard to imagine that many Abstein cards losing all of the red?

And I posted the Willis portrait because I think some of these slight color changes may have been a deliberate thing. Just my opinion of course, not to be taken as fact.

Sincerely, Clayton

Ron- I also have a Bush with a vivid orange background, it's a 6.5 Old Mill...

Kevin- you sure you don't want to edit that sentence?

Just bustin' your chops, sorry couldn't help it. ;)

Priceless!!

kevin must have been tanning in the buff again!

Having frequented quite a few card shops in the 1990's/early 2000's you would be amazed at the color transformation of many of the cards that they had in counter displays and cases, they had changed colors quite a bit due to both Sun uv rays and fluorescent lighting. Now most of these were 1950's and 60's cards as that was what was mostly sought after but I am sure that in some areas quite a few early cards were put out as well. I also have a friend who has many of his cards out in the open on display in his home for quite some time and several have lightened up. Further the amount of glued (not paste) in early cards that were removed via solvents has created many of the psychedelic multi color cards as mentioned by others. Food for thought.

Agree 100%

I don't know how anyone can arise against uv damage as a source of variations.

NM

Alright, I've been putting a lot of thought into this subject. I understand that UV rays can potentially fade colors on a card. I still have a hard time believing that it will completely remove a color though, to the point that you can't even tell the color was ever there. I understand many disagree with this.

With that being said- if a card sat in the sun for so long that it completely removed *let's say the color red:)* from the card- wouldn't the sun also degrade the composition of the paper as well? Would the sun's UV rays make the paper brittle? Not trying to sway the conversation into another direction, but I thought this was worth bringing up. The point I'm trying to make is-in my mind, a card would have to sit under direct sunlight for a pretty long time to completely remove a whole color-so, wouldn't we also be able to tell by the cardboard that this was a sun soaked card we were looking at?

Thanks for all well thought out and informative input-

Sincerely, Clayton

It depends on the cardboard.

Late 70's-early 80's Topps, many of the strip cards, and others yes the cardboard will start having problems. Those are all printed on paper with a lot of wood fiber which makes it acidic and that's what makes it brittle. The sun can speed that up a bit.

But T206 are printed on a paper that's got a lot less or maybe even no wood fiber. (I don't think any have ever actually been tested for the paper content) It's a reasonably close match for the acid free cardstock used for some comic backing boards and for some artists cardstock.
As far as I know sunlight either won't affect it or it will take so long none of us will see it happen.

Steve B

I think most of you would be very surprised at how easy sun removes colors from cards. Different years and brands are affected differently. I have never tried a T206 card, but would like to. The card on the left took 45 days to look like this and it had a darker yellow than the control card. It was faded under 3 layers of UV plastic and 25% shade cloth.

When taking a picture of a faded card the faded color leaves a dull area were the color was completely faded off. The card pictured does not have the slight contrast in hand that shows up in the photo.

The so called blue 58 Topps Hank Aaron are a great example of this. There is a thread in the post war section on them now. Notice the off white around the Indian. If it really left the factory missing the yellow to make the card blue it would be white there not off white.

T206 color variations
 

I'm wondering why, if indeed sunlight is responsible for the majority of color variations, red sometimes fades to a very light red, and other times fades to a bright orange. Not an expert by any means, but this doesn't make sense to me.

Hi Mark, i don't think anyone here said the sun is responsible for the "majority" of color variations. in fact, i think i stated that the majority of color scraps/errors are legit...suggesting, the sun or chemicals are responsible for the color damage, in only a smaller percentage of cases. we got kinda sidetracked in this thread debating whether or not UV light can damage/fade cards/posters. we know it can...anyway, there's plenty of real, legit color variations out there from the factory.

McGinnity
 

Red on the cards isn't always just red... sometimes red is layered on top of orange (combination of pink/buff and yellow). See the McGinnity's in this auction (I was the consignor and honestly was hoping for a much higher price). It you notice on the one with the red, on the left side near the face you can see some of the orange. I think in the sunlight theory that the red layer is faded away to reveal the color(s) underneath.

Color variations
 

So, you are saying they used three different layers to end up at red? Why would they do that? Doesn't that just unnecessarily add cost to the process?

Ben- very interesting and thanks for showing that. It's also interesting that in was in UV protective plastic and still did that.

Steve- Thanks for the explanation. I was reading about paper & trying to research to find out what type of material they were using back then. I found this site: http://www.pulpandpaper.org/history.shtml Pretty interesting stuff.

O/T a little-my wife bought a floral print very colorful outdoor rug for our patio. I has black, red, yellow, orange, blue, gray. I think it's been out there about 8 months now. ALL of the colors have faded-evenly. Every color faded out the same.No color completely faded away (yet, at least). I know it has nothing to do with cards-but I understand the sun can fade colors. Steve gave a great explanation as to why the red is affected the most, but I'm still having trouble with the idea that you would not even be able to tell the red was once there.

Even on Erick's card (hey Erick :)) you can tell there was some type of glue or paste or something on the back of the card, at one time. It leaves you to wonder, is it missing color from the press, or was it from chemical/glue/paste, etc.? This may have been why it didn't go for as much as you'd hoped for-I'm just guessing on that one. Awesome card though!

Now, I'm going to post this Sharpe card because I think somewhere along the line this card was either glued into a scrapbook, or came into contact with some type of chemical/glue/solvent/something? The back of the card has blue ink smeared all over it (blue same in from the "Piedmont" add) and the red on the front looks a bit light to me (sorry for the crappy scans). The reason I am showing this is because with whatever happened to this card, you can still see the red is red.

And lastly, I'm not saying anyone is wrong here- just trying to cover all areas, and trying to figure out a sure fire way to detect a true missing red pass card from what some of you say is a card that has been affected by the sun. Rob and Ron posted about the Abstein card, and I think that card is legitimately missing the red pass in quite a few of them. The same way I think the Willis portrait was deliberately printed with two different colors-red and burgundy (or would you call it violet?). Maybe many more missed the red pass, and it would be pretty cool to try to place some of these cards on the same sheet if possible. That's for another thread I'm sure :D

Sincerely, Clayton

If the sun faded away the red to reveal the colors underneath then shouldn't the background on that McGinnity be yellow instead of orange? Question is not directed at you Er!ck, just asking in general for this discussion.

Yellow was the base background color and the second ink pass applied to darken the background is still evident on the card.

Not saying it isn't possible, but its kind of a stretch to think that the sun faded off only the top layer of background ink and stopped there. Maybe I'm wrong though.

Clayton - I wish the glue on the back of that McGinnity had leached out all of the red ink. Then my McGinnity would be a blank back! ;)


Jantz

It's simply a matter of color matching... how deep or bright they wanted the red to be. Not all reds are three layers... but sometimes multiple passes of ink were used to get the "right" color.

I believe the McGinnity was missing the ink pass; I'm sure the back damage (albeit very localized) caused the lower price. Maybe the one card I most regret selling; along with a McGraw Red Hindu.

It's my opinion that most Orange that appears in T206 cards is a mix/combination of yellow and pink/buff (not a mix of yellow and red).

In the case of McGinnity, I believe the background color passes for the background were yellow, then pink/buff (to yield orange), then red. Given either the "sunlight theory" (disappearing red ink) or "missing ink theory", orange is the layer underneath. Again, just my guess, but that's why I believe the background in that McGinnity is orange and not yellow.

Ok, this was a reply to Mark. Except I missed page11 and didn't quote. So it looks totally out of place. DOH!

That was the way they did things at the time. Not all of the inks were opaque, so layering worked very well and produced better color. The bright red is typically over at least pink. And many of the brown team logos on uniforms are brown over gray.
It also allows a thinner ink coating, with two benefits. Better detail, and less ink used. Over millions of cards it probably worked out cheaper.

It's similar to painting a car. Most just use the gray primer, but if the car is a dark color a good painter will use black primer. Or red under red, white under white. Gray under light colors.

Steve B

Color variations
 

Thanks, Steve, for the explanation. I am learning a lot from this thread.

Jantz, you bring up an excellent point, and it's something I've been overlooking in all of this. I also remember you've brought this up before in the past- if the glue would remove the red from the front, how could it not affect the red on the back?

So, it seems that we could rule that out on the McGinnity. It also has me wondering about the cards on the montage-I wonder how the backs of those cards look.

This has been a great conversation, I love these kinds of threads. :) I'm still not sure about the sunlight removing all of the red on a card-fading, I can buy that one i guess-just having trouble with the sun being able to remove all traces of red, so that you would never know it was even there.Maybe it's possible, and I am wrong.That's my stumbling block in all of this.

Sincerely, Clayton

Take a look at the picture I have attached. The halftone dots are all at different angles for each color (Black, Cyan, Magenta and Yellow). Look at both of the McGinnity's with a powerful loupe and see if the magenta dots are running at the same angle on both cards. It is very possible that a yellow negative was shot on a magenta plate for the one on the left. Then it was caught by someone and a new plate was made with the correct negative on the correct plate.

Also, it is possible that the magenta and yellow plates were mislabeled before they went to press or the pressman put the yellow plate on the magenta cylinder and the magenta plate on the yellow cylinder and then caught the mistake and swapped the plates.

I'm glad you posted that graphic. I hadn't seen it before.

It only applies to the modern CMYK process though.
T206s are a combination of halftone and solid passes, and use many more than 4 colors. Where they're halftones most seem to be screened at the same angle.

Here's a closeup of Schlei, showing black, gray, light blue, dark blue, and pink.
Gray and Black are halftone the others aren't.
http://www.net54baseball.com/picture...ictureid=10425

Steve B

Not to completely change the subject, but in regards to UV harm, do SGC and PSA slabs offer UV protection?