T206 McBride question.
 

What is this blue mark on the pants? What causes a mark like this to occur?
Here are scans of both of mine with and without the mark. Also included is a link to a similar one on ebay.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/1909-T206-T-...item230de31431

A few things can cause marks like that. The most likely is some damage to the stone used for the blue ink. If it gets scratched or gouged from having something dropped on it the surface will attract ink and print. Scratches are fairly common, gouges that would make a shape like that a bit less common.

Another possibility is a fisheye. Those are caused by some bit of debris getting between the stone and the offset blanket. They're usually roundish marks surrounded by a circle of unprinted area. Usually it's just a bit of dirt or something like that, but sometimes it could be a bug or some other object. The one there makes me think bug, but bigger bits of debris usually don't stay in one place for long, so seeing two identical ones would be odd.

Pretty cool either way.

Steve B

Blue Alligator Variation?
 

Seldom seen.
My pants are clean.
Wish i had one.

Thanks Steve, I appreciate the info and am amazed by the knowledge of the board in general.