Finally found an e98 printing variation - Black and White e98s.....
 

Thought these were kind of neat. e98s, in my opinion, always seemed to be a pretty "clean" set and not one that produced a lot of printing goofs (like e90-3 for instance). Previously, the only e98 variations I was really aware of were the Old Put overprints, which are almost never found and if so, only on a couple players.

There were quite a few of these black and white cards on Ebay a few weeks back and I'm surprised no one mentioned them here. I picked up six of the cards I saw up for auction. Most of these are completely void of any color at all. One or two look like they might have a slight pinkish hue to the card though.

A couple things I noticed with these....

The cards, despite being lowgrade, are NOT faded at all. The photos are still sharp and compare to the e97 black and whites in terms of quality. This makes me believe that the cards weren't simply left out in the sun for too long. If you notice the finer details such as the color of the players' skin and gloves, you'll see that on the normal cards, there are flesh toned colors for the skin and brown used for the gloves. But on B&Ws, everything is just a slate grey color. I think the McLean is a really solid example of this. A card that has faded wouldn't simply turn grey, rather everything would appear really washed out and lighter, yet still have some color. Also, check out the captions at the bottom. The caption on the black and whites are just as sharp as the ones on the colored cards, another reason I don't believe the colors simply just faded away.

Seeing as how several of these also have been placed in numerical holders, I don't believe there was any chemical-altering or any other funny business going on. It really seems as though the cards missed most of, if not all their color passes.

Backs on these are normal...they aren't blank backs or anything like that. The print is just like those on the normal cards.

Any thoughts? Have any of you seen e98s like these before? I seem to remember a Cobb or perhaps a Matty coming up for auction a while back that was of the black and white variety. That might have been an e93 though...


Attachment 40585

Attachment 40586

Appear to be hand cut printers scrap. Possible the first color pass was in error(probably the Orange) and they pulled the sheet and one of the employees took it home and cut them up for his kids.

Interesting Cards
 

These E98s do bring up an interesting debate. Fortunately, I was able to pick up a few of the ones that I needed from the seller, but passed on these because I thought they were just faded (The Chase to me really rings out faded). But maybe I'm wrong and you may have found yourself quite a unique find. If you are correct in that they just missed the printing process or some other circumstance then you have some great cards on your hands! I hope that they are not because getting one of each card in the four different colors is proving to be an extreme challenge in itself and if I have to get black and white ones now I'll never get there:p Anyway, neat cards to look at and debate about. I guess I'm basing my arguement on the Chase and the Mack which to me look like they have color to them but are just faded. But adding to your side of the arguement is that EVERY Mcgraw with a GREEN Background, the pink skin tone color IS MISSING. At least every McGraw with a green background that I've ever seen is missing the pink color ON HIS FACE, so you may be right about your theory. Either way, nice pick up on your E98s! Any E98 is a Great card!

Hey Tim -

HAHA....I don't think that printing anomalies should add to the e98 checklist. Errors don't count, you'll still have to get the 4 background colors, however I believe that only INTENDED variations get added to the checklist. Not printing goofs and other error cards.

I agree, the Chase is seemingly pinkish in color but most of the others are completely without any sort of color. A couple reasons why I don't think these are faded...

- the photo quality is similar to e97 B&Ws. There is a lot of detail with these and the photos still look reasonably sharp. Faded cards are blurry and well....faded and much lighter than these are. If hypothetically speaking, the cards were say, left out in the sun and faded to the point where they lost all their color, wouldn't it be safe to say that they wouldn't still be as dark as these cards are?

- the captions are every bit as dark as e98s with color. If the cards had faded out, these would be lighter too.

- faded cards would still have some color...just lighter to a degree. With these cards, everything from the background, to the color on the face is a dull slate grey. Cards that are faded, wouldn't just simply turn grey in color.

I believe I used to own that green McGraw you showed. Kind of interesting that those seemingly missed the "flesh-colored" color pass...heh

Scott's argument is a feasible one I think. It seems that these cards might have been some sort of a "test run" that either saw no color passes or maybe just one, which would explain the Chase. The cards were then pulled and thrown in the discard pile where they were rescued, perhaps, and taken home.

Cool
 

They don't look like faded cards to me. Very cool.

in the missing color camp
 

I am in the missing-a-color-pass camp. That and the fact they could have been some kind of testing of the inks, and then they didn't like the outcome so quit producing them theory, seems very plausible. I saw them on ebay and meant to go after one for my type set but spaced it. I agree with Brian on his points for them not to be faded. Neat cards.....and drats :)

I agree with Tim, I hope they are not faded but I'm not sold on their being black and whites. I also passed on the cards because I didn't think they were black and whites.
Brian- I think the Cobb you are referring to was a black and white E93. Nice cards and interesting, congrats on the pickups.
I have a black and white M116 Mitchell which is a unique card so I know anomalies do exist. There is also a gray background E94 (yours?) in the hobby and of course the one of a kind orange background E94s which exist with an orange background for each player but only one known to exist for each player. I have 5 of those E94s and have never found out he reason for the orange backs. There was a theory that one sheet of E94s were printed by mistake with the orange ink used for E98s but that, in my mind, has been dismissed because even though most of the orange backgrounds came from a stash once owned by Brian Daniels in California, one of the cards came from Lionel Carter's collection and was owned by him for many years.

Thanks for the comments so far guys...I know I'll definitely enjoy this discussion as it unfolds :)

Bob - Yep, still have my "silverback" e94 (pictured below). There were other colors on that card however, such as brown on the hat and "flesh tones" on the face. The only color missing was the background itself. It seems that that card just simply missed the red color pass, blue color pass or whatever color that card was supposed to be. I always kind of thought all those orange e94s were basically the same sort of printing goof.

I will say that I'm 100% certain the e98s are not faded for the reasons I outlined above. These are just too dark and too detailed to be "faded".

I do not think they are true black and whites as they weren't intended to be this way although on some of the cards, that was indeed the end result. Like some of the others are saying, I think these are the result of a faulty print run, a "test run" or printer's scrap if you will. I think that what happened is there was a sheet of cards (maybe more than one even) that were going through for their color runs. After the first pass, someone noticed that the color didn't show up clearly (like on the Chase) or not at all (several of the others) and that the cards were at that point scrapped.

Attachment 40750

Odd, on my monitor they all appear to have a slight tint to the backgrounds.

A couple thoughts on fading.
The black ink from that era usually won't fade. The inks would have been some degree of carbonblack in an oil with maybe a touch of something like zinc oxide to make it more opaque. (And slightly gray since zinc oxide is white)
Some reds fade terribly. Some are so bad they'll fade entirely away. Unfortunately red was also an expensive color and there were many formulations all of which were kept a bit secret. Some faded quickly, others were nearly permanent.

They do look like either a missed color or more likely to my mind with two showing some color a different printing error.
Most likely is a mistake I'll call a secondary print. (I'll find the correct technical term eventually)
The ink rollers can be lifted from the plate/stone, usually something that's done to clean the press. Since not all of the ink transfers from the rubber roller that picks it up off the plate if another sheet runs through the press it will get a weak impression.

Steve B

Neat Cards to Debate On
 

Brian, would love to see them in person someday to truly make up my mind on which way I truly think these cards are- A printing goof or faded. I agree with a few others that they aren't true black and white proofs like the E97 Black and Whites, but I could go along with the arguement that they are some sort of "Freak" print where the printing process was not completed at a one of the various stages. I know there have been alot of T206s that look really weird because of the various printing process that have been omitted. I think there was a thread on these some time back and there is a cool example of one of these freak prints in the recent Tough Matty Cards thread. But I'm still not convinced that they aren't just faded, but I can see the other side of the debate. Don't know for sure because I'm certainly not an expert ( Not even close:))in printing, paper, ink etc.. Whatever the reason why these are whitish looking, they are really neat cards. Best wishes with building your E98 set. I'm at 79 on my quest towards the Master Set of E98s and they are getting tougher to find and more expensive all of the time, so it is going to be awhile before I reach my goal; heck some of the ones that I need I've never even seen that player/color combination like a Blue Davis for example. Take Care.
Oh, yes that was your Green McGraw at one time. The other two that I have seen are missing the pink on his face as well.

Steve - You made an interesting point on caption fading. I can't say that I've seen too many captions where the print has simply faded so you might have a good point there. I do believe that for these cards to be missing color because they have faded, the amount of "exposure", etc...would be so severe that it's essentially removing all the color under the assumption of course, that the card started off resembling a normal e98. Well this sort of exposure would be making the rest of the photo lighter too...not just removing the color. The main reason I don't think fading has taken place here is because these photos are still dark and have lots of detail. So I'm basically saying the entire card would be affected...not just the color.

Also, Tim is right, you sort of need to see the cards in person. A couple have pinkish hues like the Chase. However the McLean and Davis in particular look completely void of any color.

I think that we're pretty much all agreeing at this point. They're definitely not true black and white cards....rather cards that went through an initial color pass - which was faulty or too light - and then the cards were pulled before other color passes could be made - such as those for skin tones, gloves and clothing. Either way, I think that saying the cards missed some, if not all, their color passes and referring to them as printer's scrap would probably be the most accurate way to describe these cards.

Alright who snagged the "Cy" Young that popped up on eBay today?