That's an interesting one.

The extra ink isn't from overinking, but it is from a dry plate.

The areas on the plate that aren't supposed to print retain water which rejects the oil based ink. If it's a really dry day, or if the water to moisten the plate isn't adjusted correctly some of the small areas can dry out making them retain ink. (If it's really bad the larger areas can dry out too. )

Steve B

Evers and Camnitz

George Gibson. Picked this up a few days ago. Thought about this thread and the scratch tracking.

Re: Plate scratches
 

I didn't see any Kleinows when I scrolled through the thread. Curious that the mark appears to end at the diagonal lines under the word "subjects". Might this mean that the card was in the far right column (as you're viewing the backs) of the sheet?

http://www.monkberry.com/~edhans/t206klei.jpg

I already had this Wilhelm scratch documented but there is another one listed
on ebay and I noticed they both have a yellow circle on his hip above the W
after checking scans of 200+ Wilhelm's I only found one more with this yellow
circle but there was no back scan (the second one in the cardtarget link).

http://www.ebay.com/itm/T206-1909-11...item35f00ed1d7

http://www.cardtarget.com/cgi-bin/gm...submit=Display

With the evidence we have gathered so far we know there are 4-5 different
PD 150 sheets that have "plate scratches" on them, two of the back sheets had
two different sets of fronts printed on them the remaining 2-3 only had one
set of fronts printed with their back plates. Mordecai Brown (Cubs On Shirt)
was on one of the sheets that had two different fronts, there are three different
M. Brown scratches and there was one Johnny Kling scratch that matched
one of the Brown scratches. I put together a list of what I call "unconfirmed"
scratches which included the two missing Kling scratches that should match
M. Brown. After three years of searching I found one of the Kling's that matches one of the Brown scratches, it even has the same squiggle mark.

Excellent work Pat, you've made some great progress on this project.

Pat has gone far far beyond what I'd ever imagined was possible. Truly amazing.

To make it more interesting......I finally saw a card that really looks like one of the scratched plates was either reworked or wasn't resurfaced all that well before having the P350 backs laid down. And that at least two groups of fronts were printed with this reworked plate.

Charles
http://www.net54baseball.com/picture...ictureid=19015

Delehanty portrait

http://www.net54baseball.com/picture...ictureid=19013

It appears to be the same scratch as one on Powell in the P150 series.

Steve B

I didn't want to hijack Mike (bocabirdmans) thread on the BST. He has a
Wilhelm for sale with a plate scratch that shows how consistent not only
the scratches on the backs are but also how consistent the fronts can be.

Here's the example I have with the same plate scratch as Mikes, when you look at the front of mine you would think the dots coming from his nose and
mouth area are stains but if you look at the one Mike has for sale it has the
same exact marks along with identical defects in the top right border.

From the BST. Pretty cool.

Not sure if this will help, but here it is:


Attachment 206625

I know Kleinow batting is already on here but here's mine courtesy of Mike !

Does this qualify as a scratch, or is it some other kind of mark?

I hope it shows up in the scan--two fine, parallel lines running from top to bottom, about a third of the way in--

I'm pretty sure it's the same blue ink that's composes the Piedmont back.

Doug

Nice card and thank you for posting it.

Not a fluke. If you hop on Ebay right now, almost every Hannifan Piedmont 350 up for auction has these same lines on the back.

Really cool thread that I wish I had seen much sooner and posted on.

I guess I've tried to avoid T206 threads since selling my near set of 518 a few years back so as to not get seduced by the monster yet again.

I went back to the images of my set and found that I have two examples that I can share.

Frank "Wildfire" Schulte (Batting) - The plate line runs through the "i" in series down through the "n" in Piedmont

http://i1368.photobucket.com/albums/...ps4yuenoax.jpg

http://i1368.photobucket.com/albums/...psxb1gqt1l.jpg

Jimmy Williams - The plate line runs through the "P" in Piedmont down through to the left of the factory designation

http://i1368.photobucket.com/albums/...psp7m9efxu.jpg

http://i1368.photobucket.com/albums/...ps7loeq0gp.jpg

Thanks for posting those Scott. Schulte is one of the subjects that has a three
card vertical scratch (there's also a fourth Schulte with a horizontal scratch).

For anyone who's interested Here's an album of all the plate scratches I have
documented so far. There are some changes and quite a few additions I need
to make with the sheets, they haven't been updated in quite awhile. If you choose the "original" option they are the largest scans for most of the images.

A handful of the scratches aren't true plate scratches but I put them in
because they could be informative.


http://imageevent.com/patrickr/t206platescratches

And Here's an album with the scratches highlighted.

http://imageevent.com/patrickr/highl...platescratches

Great work Pat! I just looked at a couple that I have been meaning to post, but they are already represented.

Pat, thank you for posting the link so I can check whether or not I have found something new. I believe I have two new additions (posted here) and a few other repeats. I will email better scans of all of them to you and post the new guys here for the record.

A new McGraw Scratch. (upper right corner).



This new McGraw fits under this previously documented McGraw with two
scratches (middle and bottom left).

The new McGraw fits in the blank space under McGraw 1 on this sheet.
http://imageevent.com/patrickr/t206p...=0&w=4&s=0&z=9

Hopefully a new one

Hi Bryan
 

My green Cobb has a different "plate scratch" on it's PIEDMONT 150 back......

http://i603.photobucket.com/albums/t...encobbp150.jpghttp://i603.photobucket.com/albums/t...dmont150bk.jpg



TED Z
.

Beauty Ted.

Great work Pat, as always.

Cobb (green port) and Tinker (hands on knees) share the same exact
scratch indicating they were likely in the same sheet position on different
sheets.

Here's the possible sheet with two subjects with the same scratch for each
position.

http://imageevent.com/patrickr/t206p...=0&w=4&s=0&z=9

No doubt that Cobb and Tinker were positioned on different sheets in the exact same spot. Nice post.

Two Name Cards With Plate Scratches?
 

I've followed this thread and kept track of various clues that could help put these sheets together. Pat has speculated (and I agree) that there were different press runs during the Piedmont 150 phase. To the best of my knowledge, none of the two-namer cards have plate scratches, but there are known two-namer subjects that have plate scratches.

Following is the list of Piedmont 150 two-namers that are known, but to the best of my knowledge, none of them have plate scratches. I think I have a few of these images/cards at home, but can anyone else provide backs of any of these cards?

Those that are red bold have images below (12/20 images; none have plate scratch):
Beaumont - Seymour
Bender (port.) - Delehanty (Wash.) [there are two of these]
Bergen (bat) - Dooin
Brown, M (port.) - Magee (port.)
Bradley (port.) - Bender (port.)
Devlin - Schulte (front view)
Hinchman, B. - Stovall (port.)
Jennings (port.) - Jordan (port.)
Johnson (port.) - Schlei (catching)
Konetchy - Jennings (port.)
Killian (pitching) - Chance (red port.)
Lindaman - Bresnahan (port.)
Lundgren (Cubs) - Doolin
Lundgren (Cubs) - Ball (New York)
Manning (batting) - Flick
Pastorius - Lake (NY, throw)
Powell (horizontal) - O'Leary (port.) [there are two of these]
Shipke - Griffith
Spade - Cicotte
Walsh - Seymour (batting)

Jennings/Jordan & WaJo/Schlei (not my card unfortuantely)

a few more
 

I don't see scratches on these:

Bender-Delehanty (mine, one of two known)
Bergen-Dooin (not mine)
Killian-Chance (mine)

From the two names thread
 

From the two names thread:

M. Brown (Portrait) - Magee
http://www.net54baseball.com/attachm...1&d=1333758562http://www.net54baseball.com/attachm...1&d=1333758577

Powell - O'Leary
http://i138.photobucket.com/albums/q...g/Image437.jpghttp://i138.photobucket.com/albums/q...g/Image438.jpg

Walsh - Seymour
http://www.net54baseball.com/attachm...1&d=1414722508http://www.net54baseball.com/attachm...1&d=1414722513

Shipke - Griffith
http://www.net54baseball.com/attachm...1&d=1419044753

Lundgren - Ball
http://www.net54baseball.com/attachm...1&d=1426128664

Erick, I haven't seen any two-name cards with plate scratches either.

It's interesting that's there's a Pastorius-Lake and a Lake-Pastorius.

Here's the Manning-Flick.

Ack! That's a mistake. Went back to the original thread and I had copied in Chris' information and he listed it as Top/Bottom. When I updated later I didn't see the card listed as Bottom/Top, so I added it.

In short, they don't both exist. The correct subjects are Pastorius-Lake. Updating lists above.

Here's the Pastorius-Lake from the Favorite 2015 Pick-Ups thread:
https://c1.staticflickr.com/1/467/19...1c910f03_b.jpg

Young (bh) 6
 

Hi Pat. I have a copy of what you term Young (bh) 6. Looks to me like it fits over your Young (bh) 1. Have you just not updated all of your mock-ups or do you have reason to believe that they do not line up?

Steve, sorry I missed your question and just saw it as I was about to post
something here.

The sheet that has the Young (bare hand) on it has been the hardest to try
and figure out. The sheet that is in my imageevent with young on it was
originally two different partial sheets and I did have Young 1 and 6 connected
vertically but it was pointed out that the two sheets looked like they went
together and I thought they might, but in putting them together Young 1 and
6 had to be separated. I haven't worked on this sheet much recently but I
think it may actually be two different sheets as I originally had them.

I think I found the final piece of the puzzle for one of the sheets but I have
to wait to confirm it. If it fits it should give the final number of Horizontal
subjects on this sheet (and I think at least all of the PD 150 layouts used
when the damage occurred on all of the plate scratch sheets). Based on the press sizes
available at the time they were printed I think it should give us the vertical number also.

I recently found this unconfirmed Waddell scratch that I was almost certain should exist based on the Waddell (port) same sheet position relationship with Schulte (front view). There were four different Schulte scratches and two Waddell (port) scratches. Both Waddell scratches were exact matches with two of the Schulte scratches indicating they were in the same sheet position on two different sheets, therefore I was pretty sure the two other Schulte scratches would eventually be found on a Waddell (port) PD 150.

It really makes the research worthwhile when you find these
scratches that you think should exist based on a pattern.

Imagine if that were a Magie rather than a Magee!! Does a 2 name Magie exist? If it does I want it.

.

I found a Seymour with the continuation of the pink mark from Cicotte.

That's interesting Pat

Good eye!

Pat, you're killin it! Keep up the good work.

These might be repeats, there are now too many posts to go through to check.

Repeats are fine, especially with nice pics like those. :)

Pat really is doing an amazing job with this. Especially extending it to matching up a flaw from the front, which really nails down those two being side by side.

The other thing about multiple scans is that eventually it might be possible to narrow down one group as being done after another group depending on how much of the scratch shows. Less might indicate wear to the plate, or a light resurfacing after wear. (A deep scratch on a stone might survive a light resurfacing, and there's a couple scans I have that I think show the scratches surviving into the 350 series. )

Steve B

Another Willis

This Brown (Port) is a new scratch and is a match with Burch (Batting).
Attachment 246675 Attachment 246676
Attachment 246677 Attachment 246678

It's on this plate scratch sheet that had two different sets of fronts printed on it.

Attachment 246679
Attachment 246680

Excellent! Looking forward to this next sheet advancing.....very interesting.

I love this thread. Thanks Pat (and everyone who has contributed)!

OK Pat, got some more for ya. Let me know if one of these is a new piece!

I'm famous! That's my Neal Ball up on Ebay right now, didn't think to post it.

Hi Bryan,

I do have all of those but thank you for posting them.

There are five different Neal Ball scratches and two of them have similar
but different scratches. The Ball in your post is one of them (This one on the right).

Attachment 248840Attachment 248841

Scott, I hope that you aren't upset that I posted a picture of one of your Balls. :D

Pat, I am enjoying the hunt for these. How many are missing from your sheet and which players do you think they will likely be?

Hi Bryan,

There a still a lot of scratches that I'm searching for but here are a few....
I'm looking for a Crawford for this sheet.
Attachment 248845
Attachment 248846

I'm also looking for the matches to these scratches on the A-B sheet.

The matches to these three (Conroy, Gibson, And Hinchman) should come from the SC factory 649 subjects.
Attachment 248847
Attachment 248848
Attachment 248849

And the match to O'Leary should be a non-649 subject.
Attachment 248850

From Willowgrove, who sent me an auction link.

Reulbach with the scratch up near the top.

Not great scans as they're from a lot and the original scan isn't all that big, but the important bit shows.

Steve B



http://www.net54baseball.com/picture...ictureid=21689
http://www.net54baseball.com/picture...ictureid=21688

Mr. Birmingham

Earlier in this thread a couple of board members posted up scans of two Hannifans (Piedmont 350) with lines on the backs.

I just noticed Frank B. posted this Demmitt on the BST with matching lines.

Below are one of the Hannifans & Frank's Demmitt.

The plate scratches seem to be taking on a life of their own!!

We can add Myers (fielding) with these lines.
Attachment 257744Attachment 257745

All three also have these marks.
Attachment 257746
Attachment 257747Attachment 257748

So we know these three were in the same sheet position on different sheets.

I found this new Kling scratch.
Attachment 269846
Attachment 269847

This was a probable scratch based on a Mordecai Brown with the same scratch.
Attachment 269848
Attachment 269849

There were two different existing matching scratches for Brown and Kling so
it was likely that this Kling existed.
Attachment 269850
Attachment 269852
Attachment 269853
Attachment 269854
Attachment 269855
For some reason there are very few scratches of certain subjects on this
sheet and kling is one of them. This is the first Kling with this scratch I have seen and I've
only seen one or two of the other two Kling scratches but I have several Brown's in my collection and I've seen quite a few others that have come up
for sale.
Attachment 269856
Attachment 269857

Nice find Pat and thank you for putting out this information!

I have a Kling PD 150 as well. When I get a minute, I'll take a look and see if mine has a scratch. I may have already looked for you earlier in this thread, but I'll check again.

Jantz

A bunch more

This card has probably been posted given the bold scratch, but just in case.

New Subject
 

I picked up this Clarke (Portrait) off ebay from a board member. This is the
first Clarke (Portrait) with a scratch and it's an exact match with the scratch
found on Flick.
Attachment 280627Attachment 280628
Attachment 280629Attachment 280630
Attachment 280631
Attachment 280632

this tops the charts of t206 research. Great stuff

I'm gonna have to demur but what Pat & Steve have done is amazing. When they started out I thought there was no way they would be able to find so many cards with plate scratches. I was wrong. Great job Pat & Steve! Please post your most current sheet configurations when you can.

I backed off looking when I traded scans with Pat. I'd been hunting through scans on ebay and sometimes auction sites, and had a decent batch saved. Pat had about three times as many and it took me a while to realize he also had the actual cards. It finally sunk in when I realized all his scans were the same size.


I'm happy to have gotten the ball rolling, but Pat has done nearly all the heavy lifting on this one.

Steve B

Hi Scot,

I'm still collecting plate scratch cards and scans but I haven't worked on
or updated the sheets in a while but I will post the updated sheets
when I do.

So far there are 104 different subjects and 252 different plate scratches.
Here is a list of the subjects with the number of different plate scratches
found on each one.

Abbaticchio - 3
Ames - 3
Ball - 5
Bender - 1
Bergen - 1
Birmingham - 1
Bransfield - 3
Bresnahan - 1
Brown, G. - 1
Brown, M. (Cubs) - 3
Brown, M. (Port) - 1
Camnitz - 4
Chance - 1
Chase (Pink Port) - 1
Chase (White Cap) - 2
Cicotte - 5
Clarke, F. (Bat) - 1
Clarke, F. (Port) - 1
Clarke, J.J. - 2
Cobb (Bat On) - 4
Cobb (Port) - 2
Conroy - 5
Covaleski - 5
Crandall - 6
Crawford - 4
Criger - 2
Criss - 4
Dahlen - 1
Davis, G. - 2
Davis, H. - 2
Donlin (Fielding) - 4
Donlin (Seated) - 2
Donohue - 5
Dooin - 2
Doyle - 2
Durham - 6
Elberfeld - 2
Evers (Cubs Blue Sky) - 4
Ferris - 2
Flick - 1
Ganley - 2
Goode - 1
Hahn - 2
Herzog - 3
Hinchman - 2
Isbell - 2
Jacklitsch - 4
Johnson - 3
Jordan - 1
Joss - 3
Karger - 2
Keeler (Bat) - 2
Keeler (Port) - 1
Killian - 1
Kleinow - 5
Kling - 3
Konetchy - 5
Lake - 1
Leibhardt - 2
Lindaman - 3
Manning - 1
Mathewson (Port) - 1
Mathewson (White Cap) - 3
McGraw (Finger In Air) - 3
McGraw (Port) - 3
McIntyre - 1
Mullin - 3
Murphy - 3
Nicholls - 4
Niles - 5
Oldring - 3
O'Leary - 2
Overall - 1
Pastorius - 1
Pattee - 1
Pelty - 1
Plank - 1
Powell - 3
Powers - 2
Reulbach - 1
Schaefer - 1
Schulte - 4
Seymour - 5
Shaw - 2
Shipke - 5
Smith - 2
Stahl - 2
Stone - 2
Stovall - 2
Sullivan - 1
Tannehill - 1
Tenney - 1
Tinker (Hands On Knees) - 1
Turner - 1
Waddell (Port) - 2
Waddell (Throwing) - 3
Wallace - 3
Walsh - 1
Weimer - 2
Wilhelm - 2
Williams - 4
Willis - 3
Young (Bare Hand) - 6
Young (Port) - 1

Crandall, Durham and Young (Bare Hand) have the most different scratches
with six.

Attachment 280705
Attachment 280706
Attachment 280707Attachment 280708
Attachment 280709

The majority of the plate scratches have several examples of the same scratch.

Here are the ones I have of Sullivan and I have seen approximately 10 others.
Attachment 280710

Murphy Plate Scratch?
 

Pat,
I have been following along on the plate scratch thread as I find that project intriguing. I primarily collect Danny Murphy, doing back runs for any of his issues that have multiple combinations. I just picked up a MC throwing pose that has his name top and bottom. I noticed on the back it appears to have a plate scratch and this drew me to the card even more. It is piedmont 150. I was hoping long you could confirm this as an actual plate scratch. Pic are attached.

Thanks,
Ron

Murphy plate scratch
 

Plate scratch on top left on back?

Hi Ron,
Thanks for posting your Murphy double name. It's definitely a plate scratch.
Here's another Murphy with the same scratch. Yours shows more of the scratch
because of the higher cut on the top but they're the same scratch.
Attachment 281630Attachment 281631

And here's the Murphy scratch that was above the one you have.
Attachment 281632Attachment 281633
Attachment 281634

Almost three years ago Steve pointed out in this thread that the upside
down back of White matched up with a Doyle back.

At the time I searched and couldn't find a Doyle or Stone (Doyle and
Stone share the same position on a plate scratch sheet) that had a print
flaw that is on the smaller portion of the second back on the upside down
White.

This Doyle that sold on ebay recently has that mark.
Attachment 319281Attachment 319282
Attachment 319283
Attachment 319284
So far Doc White hasn't been found with a plate scratch but if
one is eventually found it should allow us to figure out the exact
size of this plate scratch sheet based off the upside down White.


If the link works it should be a scan of that sheet that can be enlarged.
https://photos.imageevent.com/patric...ts/C-D%201.jpg

That's great work again Pat. Exciting to see pieces continue to fall into place.

Was at a card show yesterday and picked up a P150 that has a back scratch. I’ll get it scanned and posted in the next few days. In the meantime, the blog post below has my video where I show it. Hopefully it’s a new discovery!

CARD SHOW ACQUISITIONS: PLANO CARD SHOW 6/10/18

Thanks for the video link Kin.

There are five different confirmed Covaleski scratches and the one
you picked up at the show is one of them.

Attachment 319443

Yours is the bottom scratch of a triple Covaleski vertical scratch.

Attachment 319444

Well dang! Ah well, it's going to be tough to find new ones. Thanks for the note!

-kin

This is currently on ebay (not mine). I am sure you are aware of it, but I figured it cant hurt to pass this on as part of the plate scratch project.

The picture is poor (again, its on ebay) but the scratch runs from above the A in "Ball" down to the right (through the "m" in Piedmont) and leaves the card between the bottom right corner and the "VA"

The reason they appear only on the 150 cards is because Knapp and Pancoast were finally granted a patent in Feb. 1910 that finally fixed a major defect in the lithographic printing presses at ALC.

The blue lines on the cards are called gear streaks. They occur due to uneven pressure on the rubber rollers of the printing press.

The T206 cards were printed using a "web" (meaning paper roll) offset lithography press. This was new technology at the time, replacing the old sheet fed presses. Allowing for greater production numbers.

Because they were printed on an offset press, the cards never came in contact with the metal printing plate at all. The image was transferred to the card via rubber roller.

https://image.ibb.co/eTV4VJ/litho1aa_1.gif
(In this simplified diagram, the ink gets transferred from the printing plate, to a rubber "blanket" roller, and then to the card.)

https://image.ibb.co/kvEj9o/CMYK.jpg
(CMYK printing for T-206. First the black border and name. Then yellow, cyan and magenta. Then the back in blue.)

The problem at the time was that the rubber rollers were made of pure rubber (instead of a harder, more durable synthetic material), which didn’t hold up well to high production numbers and tended malform, snagging the paper and changing thickness easily, causing uneven tension in the press, which would then lead to the paper moving out of position in a diagonal direction, shown below:

https://image.ibb.co/hnDi28/beforeafter.jpg

Basically a paper jam. One that would move in a circular path as it went around and around (based on what the printing machine probably looked like – a big circle). As the rubber would swell up slightly due to the pressue, it would make contact with the inked plate, causing the streak on the paper (and also scratching and damaging the plate).

In order to combat this, Knapp and Pancoast devised a fix by inserting a middle section of the web feed (highlighted in yellow above) that would control the tension and keep the paper pressure even most of the time. At least, that’s what it looks like based on the illustration and the explanation in the patent application.

Not sure exactly how the mechanism worked, but it had something to due with keeping the tension balanced with the fabric (I believe this was the term for the “blanket”, and I’m not sure if they’re referring to the rubber roller or a blanket wedged between the paper and the roller.)

That's interesting.

Here's the patent, which was assigned to ALC.
https://patents.google.com/patent/US...p+and+Pancoast


The "fabric" mentioned in the patent is not the Blanket, which was the covering on one of the main press rollers or anything wedged in between, but that does refer to the web itself.

Even if there was some sort of creasing damage to the blanket, that wouldn't produce solid lines of color. In fact it would generally produce the exact opposite, white unprinted lines. (Generally, as there's a possibility of some marks I've seen coming from a wrinkle but I can't say for sure that's what caused them. )
A sideways slip of the web would only produce wrinkles in one direction, along the web, and these scratches do exist in both directions, with a few cards showing an intersection.

There is some solid evidence that Some T206s were printed using a flatbed lithography press that printed from stones.
Have you found anything solid that indicates a multi color web press? It's possible, and I've seen a few things that make me think that a two color press may have been used for some of the production, but not much indication that it would have been a web press.

I can elaborate, but I'll probably have to draw some sketches, and it might be more appropriate in it's own thread.

What do you think Guys? Get into it here or in it's own thread?

I'd love to see this have its own thread.

Doesn't really seem possible logically (imo) that the Print Scratches could be "gear streaks". The scratches sometimes stretch the length of the sheet diagonally, and they make abrupt changes of direction. Definitely interested to hear more about the gear streaks, but unless I'm not fully understanding the term, I don't think that's what we are looking at here.

Steve,

I guess it's possible to also do offset lithography with a stone plate cylinder.

Doing research on this a while back, I came to the conclusion that the half-tone patterns on the T206 faces were simply "Ben-Day Dots" and that it was likely easier to produce plates from metal using acid etching instead of stone. Given the large number of player subjects and cards produced, I think this is likely the case.

I think the early 19th century color litho cards were done on flat stone. They have a distinct look and feel.

Knapp was known for his designs of multi-color rotary presses. It would've been a very odd business decision if ALC printed T206 cards using flat stones and old hand-presses.

The streaks go diagonally in a straight line. Something that would happen when you have paper between two spinning cylinders, and one cylinder is spinning faster than the other with pressure on one side.

A helix of ink around a cylinder is created - like a spinning barber shop pole.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...er-pole-01.gif

If the stripes were ink, they would produce diagonal lines on a piece of paper.

https://render.fineartamerica.com/im...a-jasiczak.jpg

I'm not trying to be argumentative, just interested in the idea and would like to understand it better. Here are the two main reasons why I don't think we are looking at "gear streaks"

1. The lines are definitely not "straight". They follow a general direction but are not a straight line.

2. The Plate Scratches follow the exact same pattern every time. For two of the Plate Scratch patterns, there are two different sheets with the exact same pattern on the back, but a completely different set of fronts. The backs allow us to re-create what the sheet looks like, which Pat has done.

If it was just a random malfunction of the press, I can't imagine that the pattern would be exactly the same every time.

Note: I edited my post above to add the barber shop illustration. Apologies if you replied before you saw it.

1. They're straight, but sometimes shaky. I've seen most of the photos posted on this thread and the shaky lines could possibly be due to vibration. They're definitely straight lines more often than not.

2. Do you mean that the lines appear on the backs only and not on the front? I think this is because the last stop (or first) on the press was the printing plate for the back design.