T205 Sam Leever with pink background
 

Here is a T205 Sam Leever with a pink background that I picked up in yesterday's Birmingham auction. Leever is usually seen with a yellow background. Sometimes you see a sort of orange background. I included a scan of the other Leever in the auction. Also, here is a Gibson, that usually has the pink background. It has an orange color shift stripe. Questions? Answers? Similar cards? Rob

Is the back clean?

Mac, here's the back from the listing. I'll follow up with scans when I receive the card. I thought it was kind of neat, whether due to wear etc. or not.

Cool card! It's hard to tell by the pic but it looks like the white from the chipping on the borders is pink too. Don't believe I've seen the same thing with other T205's. Could it be some sort of staining on the card? BTW, I know the facsimile signatures on the cards are not always representative of the player's actual signature (Mathewson comes to mind... though Leifeld's is and it's gorgeous) but if it is, it may be the best looking signature of any player I've seen!

Either way it’s a neat card.

Normally for a card like that, I’d think it could be missing a color pass. Or a color was running very low in ink at that point, so it printed very lightly. But in those cases, the back toning would probably have a different cause than the color difference in the front.

Maybe there was some sort of impression cylinder transfer in which pink ink was on a cylinder before the card ran through. The scan of the back, with the pattern of small “bubbles” of lighter area within a darker toned base, also made me wonder if the cause might be environmental/chemical, which could affect front and back, but I’m in no way sure about that. It doesn’t really look to me like glue residue, which could be another way that a color on the front could be affected.

But given that both front and back have color quirks, it seems most likely that the paper itself has a toning. Maybe it was pinkish to begin with. If the paper in the “white“ areas of the border has the same toning, as Tyler notes above, then it could be that the paper itself was that color through and through before anything was printed on it. I wonder if you can tell whether the printing on the back is above or below the toning.

When you have it in hand, a high-resolution scan (or a peek through a loupe) should show whether the pinkness on the front is on there in the same overall pattern as the toning on the back, and whether you can tell if the pinkness is above or below the other colors.

A very cool pickup - I look forward to seeing more details!

I think the Gibson orange stripe is the result of the usual yellow border ink being shifted down a few millimeters, under the pink.

The pinking could be caused by a stay too long in a soak with red lined paper. So it could be a result of scrapbook recovery. I would expect it to be more concentrated in lines, though. So maybe it was affixed to red construction paper and then soaked off.

The Leever that was at auction definitely missed a color pass. Good eye and nice catch.

As the auctioneer I vehemently disagree and think it is environmental.

+1 looks like chemical or sun/light damage to me

Another vote for chemical or sun damage. I have owned other ATC/American Lithography cards where yellow has faded to this tone; all of them had dark toned backs, consistently lighter colors as this one appears too, and other evidence of chemical or sun damage. Then again, I think the vast majority of 'color defects' did not leave the factory that way.

This is what I think too...

A closer look...
 

Card arrived. Thanks, Scott.

Here are some zoomed-in scans of the pink Leever...

Would the lack of red ink also cause the borders to become green? All the different color differences are neat and fun to collect as a side subset but I would never pay a premium on many of them, especially the cards missing the red ink pass like the T206's. My main reason for feeling this way is because nearly every professionally graded card that I've seen that's labeled missing red ink, has very light to extremely damaged card backs. They are either missing paper from being glued into a scrap book and have lost certain colors from exposure to the glue and/or paper. Others can have discolored backs and/or water stains from soaking them out of scrap books. Sometimes they can have sun damage where certain colors are literally bleached out. Some of those types of cards are more common with pin holes in them from being hung on a corkboard. My point is, it's extremely difficult to find a card that's missing ink that also has a perfect problem free back. I'm sure some exist but many of the ones floating around have issues.

Ronnie, I agree and it is my reasoning behind believing the color on Leever is an environmental issue and not a printing one. The entire back is discolored.