T206 Blue Old Mill
 

Anyone ever hear of a T206 Blue Old Mill?
There is one for sale here at the National.

Reprint....avoid ;)

yep chris RUN!!!!

It's not a reprint. Several people have looked at it and it's definitely a real card.

Can you fill us in on some more details? I've never heard of that before.

You'd likely know if its real or not, very odd though.

http://i.imgur.com/VHQRo.jpg

Photo please...
 

someone must have a smartphone nearby...

Chris....
 

You always find some gemz.....GET A PIC:D post it!!

The card is at SGC, I'll post a pic once it gets back.

blue old mill
 

Chris!!!

SWEET !! u picked it up>>??? smart to have it graded.....:D

We are dying to see!

Well if it's at SGC then it's starting to sound real. Amazing.

I will be skeptical until it gets a grade from SGC. Is it a Uzit blue or a Polar Bear blue?

The card is not mine. It's polar bear blue. I'll post a pic soon.

T206 Blue Old Mill
 

Assuming the card is legit, I'm not really suprised to hear that such a card exists. Since minor color variations exist with Old Mill SL and Lenox (Black/Brown) backs, I've always wondered why other backs don't exist in more than one color. Why aren't there green, red or brown Piedmonts for example...or maybe blue, green or black Sweet Caporals?

I suppose using green ink to print Piedmont or Sweet Caporal backs would be such a blatant disregard for quality control that ALC wouldn't do it, or maybe ATC wouldn't tolerate it. But maybe using brown ink instead of black to print a Lenox back for example was more acceptable or within a certain level of tolerance. Using blue ink instead of black to print an Old Mill back seems like it might be along the same lines. I presume it's more noticable though.

I guess the only thing that does suprise me is that something like this hasn't surfaced before now.

Steve

T206 Blue Old Mill
 

Darn! I just checked all 36 of my T206s with Old Mill backs and not one of them is blue.

I wonder if any Cycle or Tolstoi backs were printed in blue that day.

Steve

i'm surprised such a card exists!!!!! after all of these years...noone's ever seen one? Faded Black ink? A scrap of some sort? Very odd?! I'm very intrigued by such a T206.

wheres the pic?

Very intriguing, in all my years collecting t206s, i have never heard of such a card.....

If everything ends up checking out, this discovery would cause insanity.

Would this reveal anything with regard to the printing process of the backs? Now, granted I don't know a whole lot about it - but the "plate" they used, perhaps they wet the wrong side with the blue layer of ink, and then printed that particular Old mill card with the blue ink???


.

Hopefully it's real. A blue OM sheet could have 50 - 100+ cards on it, I would think a few would have been seen by now. Similar to the brown Lenox/OM, it could be only a few sheets of each was printed.

Maybe it's like the OM overprints and was a one off test run. Patiently waiting :)

Most very experienced people who have looked at it think it's real. We will have a better idea if SGC, although not infallible, grades it. I think we will know by tomorrow. I haven't personally looked at it.

this thread has the same vibe as our infamous April Fool's Joe Jackson T206 proof...i'd be shocked if it were real. after all these years, and with all of the collective knowledge on the board, no one has ever heard of this before.

Blue old mill
 

the suspense is killing me!!:o

I NEED TO SEE THIS CARD:D

There were also, a few years ago, Old Mill Southern Leagues with black overprint bar(s) that were found to be forgeries by T206Museum.com.

I remember that well.

Anyway, Blue Old Mill sounds very suspect. I'd love to be surprised here, as a new discovery would be great, but I doubt it's legit.

Anything new on the potential blue Old Mill back? False alarm?

I'm with Michael on this one. I'm not getting my hopes up until we see a pic of this card in an SGC slab. Hopefully that will be soon too.

Best

AndyH

blue
 

This must be one of those rebacked things.
Just can't see it being real.
best,
barry

The card is slabbed. if anyone wants to upload pics I can email them to you. The uploader isn't resizing pics for me and I cant resize phone pics

+1

As others have said, I think we would have seen a few others by now...it's been 103 years.

So it's real. How is it possible that noone has seen an example before? Or does somebody have one and he's keeping it a secret?

does anyone know what grade sgc gave it?

blue
 

i guess those of us missing the national are having our Ashton K.
moment.

Andrew's pics. My oh my.

http://i.imgur.com/eTHBg.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/BiAeP.jpg

I guess that is blue, although a very dark shade close to black. Is SGC sure this is original and the blue wasn't added at a later date? How did they test it?

Edited to say it would be too difficult for color to be added later. Okay, it's a blue.

Old Mill Blue
 

Good point Barry. I wonder how they did test it. Did they have anything to compare it to at the current location?

Tony

Tony- while you were posting I edited mine. It would be pretty tough to add blue given the configuration and design on the back. Not impossible, but really a challenge.

Is it just me who still cannot see the photos?

Maybe faded or chemical, ABs have turned blue.

Chris- are you saying a chemical could be applied to change the color of the ink?

What's that? The sound of 1000 advanced back collectors all saying,"Damn" at exactly the same time...

The borders look too wide. Hand cut printer's scrap?

Absolutely amazing. And Ed Walsh no less. I can't believe we've never seen one before. I guess these things happen at the National huh?

I am always dubious whenever I see a card whose corners appear to be so evenly and badly rounded, especially when the remainder of the card shows relatively less wear.
Val

Chemicals have changed the fronts, certain backs likely could, not sure about black though.

Back...

Black/ brown can degrade to blue however it depends on the composition of the ink

how fast will that hit an auction house... lol... I say 30 days

Very neat to see, thanks for taking those Andrew.

Does anyone think the font on the front is very black like the reprints we commonly see? That is usually a tell tale sign, no?

The name does look too dark but could just be the picture. When i look at the back of the card on the computer, it looks blue but on my phone, the back looks more black. I think this is gonna be one of those cards that has to be viewed in person.

It doesn't look hand cut to me. It looks like a normal card with an abnormal back. SGC determined that the card is standard length and width when it decided not to give it an AUTH grade. That would mean that there would have to be at least one entire sheet of blue backs, no? Why would they print just the one blue back, right?

Would like to see a better picture of the front. The font looks way too dark to me. Even though its slabbed and I trust SGC, I'm thinking reprint. It seems fishy that the ink is blue and the reprinted backs also have blue ink. I would feel the same way about a brown or green Polar Bear back.

I looked at it today. Appeared factory cut to me. With the lighting at the national I had trouble seeing the color, but ag was with me and immediately said polar bear blue

Completely agree with the Erick on the factory cut. 100% legit Polar Bear blue Old Mill back. The owner stated he been getting lots of offers. Glad I was able to hold it and get a good look at it. Pretty cool that it was Ed Walsh on front as well.

Best,

Andy

Or maybe someone created this card to prove a point?

+1

Does anyone know where it came from? This isn't one of those behind the table national cards, is it?

How do you guys know it's factory cut? By no means am I saying you're wrong because I don't know enough about T206 to make that determination and I didn't get the chance to look at it in person, but how do you explain the extra large borders?

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x...sguy/eTHBg.jpghttp://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x...81hyg60_12.jpg

Edited to add: the outline around the picture is very faint, almost non-existent.

If it was hand cut it wouldn't receive a numerical grade. SGC determined it was factory cut.

The owner has been in the hobby a long time and is a respectable dealer. Said he bought in box full of tobacco cards twenty years ago. He knew it was different, but waited until now to break it out for the world to see.

Card looks 100% authentic to me, no indication of being hand cut. I think an authentic grade would have helped in this case.

I'm going with faded/altered back.

T206 Blue Old Mill
 

The name is brown. I opened the picture in photoshop and used the color picker.

Looks black to me.

If it appears blue in person, it's the result of black ink fading over time or reacting to something. It wasn't printed with blue ink. Not sure why SGC would give it that designation.

Am I Blue?
 

It seems odd that someone would hold on to that secret for 20 years, especially a dealer... Is it ok to say who?

Hey Frank ...I think this ones a little better...
:)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zWmF_2u-9nk

This sums up my feelings as well. I have seen many backs of almost all T206 brands with variations in the depth of color. While not knowing the source and composition of ALC's black dye (or blue dye, for that matter), it seems much more likely that this represents a faded or poorly mixed dye lot, rather than a color variation planned in advance at the time of printing.

Unless these pictures aren't doing the blue justice, I would think there could be plenty of these out there and no one ever noticed. If no one mentioned this was a blue back and just posted the scan, I don't think anyone would've known. Hopefully it looks more blue in person, otherwise it just looks like a variation in color that you see with almost every back. You could make a paint chart out of the different shades of blue you see with piedmonts

I'm thinking black variation like everyone else. SGC might want to think about re-holdering?

blue?
 

i'm with rob a and judson.
Black to black/blue---sorta like a bruise. :)
best,
barry

T206 Blue Old Mill
 

"Old Mill" is definitely blue. The frame is dark grey. I opened the picture in photoshop and used the color picker. Nice pickup.

Was the frame printed in a separete pass?

Backs are susceptible to fading/changing. The Hindu was listed as a blank back a few years ago at Legendary, the AB belonged to a fellow boardmember.

http://i.imgur.com/XSXKm.jpghttp://i.imgur.com/nMyVG.jpg

Interesting card, for sure and a tough front/back combination. I just looked and out of ~250 Walsh's graded by SGC there are only 2 Old Mills. I thought mine was the only one in SGC's pop report, but now there is a 2nd and it is a 30 -- perhaps that is the card under discussion. An image of mine is attached.

http://www.sgccardregistry.com/cards/um18372.jpg

Regarding the comment about a weak border around the image, note that mine is missing a good chunk of the frame on the right side. Perhaps things got worse as they printed the OMs (and ran out of black ink :) ) Maybe I better run upstairs and see if I can squint enough to make my back blue, too!

Dan has that Hindu ghost.

I find this very interesting. Ten years ago I had several Old Mill backs that, if you had never seen a brown one before, you would have said were dark brown. But board members agreed that these were not the same as the lighter-brown 'official' brown Old Mill. They were, of course correct; however, my dark brown ones were at least as far away from the 'normal' black Old Mills as is this blue one.

+1 scan quality and lighting can make a big difference.

I took a chance on this Ellam, looked to be handcut and is a possible br OM combo...their scans vs mine.

http://i.imgur.com/GsMCs.jpg

A couple technical points to consider.

There are few common black pigments for printing inks, especially from the 1910 era. The common ones are carbon black and lampblack, both forms of carbon. Neither of those fades. And neither are prone to simple color changes.
Iron gall ink will initially write bluish black, but the real stuff will eventually turn brownish. And it's not typically used for printing. Pens yes, printing no.

India ink can also turn blue, but I've only heard of that on tattoos. And it also isn't used much in printing.

Green and brown are completely different, and can be changed/bleached.


The polar bear blue would have been made by mixing some blue with some black, possibly with other colors added.

I can think of a few scenarios where the wrong color might get used, and if they were producing millions of cards any one of them could have happened.
So it's a very interesting card for a lot of reasons.

Someone proving a point? Wow, if that's it they've done it. And if that's it our hobby just got very complex. I doubt it, but I suppose it's technically possible.

Steve B

Just wierd that only one has surfaced in 100 years. Maybe printed on the same sheet as the Wags and Plank. They were printed in blue ink. :). Maybe that story of printed all those fakes in the 70's is not really a story. They were printed as jokes and impossible combinations so they couldnt fool any body. They all had a good laugh back then and I wonder if they are all having a good laugh at us now?

I examined the card closely today under a lighted loupe and believe it is legit. I compared it very carefully, back and forth, with a regular black Old Mill. There is no doubt it is blue and not faded black. It also seemed apparent to me that ink laid/adhered in the same way on both the black and the blue. In other words, the way the ink looked on the cardboard, other than being a different color, looked the same on the two. Everybody that saw in in person at the National, including many of the most knowledgeable people in the hobby agreed that it looked real.
JimB

This is the ONLY original. All of the rest of the Old Mill T-206 cards in the hobby are bogus.:D