T205 Print? Oddity
 

Hey,

I just picked this card up off Ebay and thought I would share and garner some opinons... It appears that a "gold border" might have been printed on the reverse side of the card. I initially thought that it might be pen or crayon but upon close inspection it appears to have been printed on the card. The border lines are straight (not hand drawn) and the spacing seems correct (comparing the distance between the gold borders on the front). Perhaps the printer placed the "sheet" face down when applying the gold border, then after realizing the mistake flipped it over and finished printing the gold border on the front. If that is what happened then I would expect there to be other copies from that sheet in circualtion. Has anyone ever seen another? Please let me know...

Thanks,

Ed

very interesting , cant wait till some of the t205 experts post, love to see what they have to say

Is it gold or the yellow base? Typically the boarders have a yellow base then the gold laid over.

Andrew,

Up close it looks more greenish than yellow but after 102 years colors can change or fade so I am not completely sure...

Ed

Is there a chance that another T205 was under that card for many years and trasfered the gold border? The gold ink has been known to oxidize and maybe it soaked into the card back you have. It could of been just the right amount of time, temp, and moisture that might have caused it over time to transfer into the paper. I'm not talking about your card front border transfering to the back but another cards border.

Cool card Ed. Thanx for posting. I'm inclined to go with Ron's theory.

Neat card. I dunno about this theory though. It seems if a card was sitting on this one, and the border somehow soaked/oxidized onto that back, the lines wouldn't be so straight? T205s had a lot of print issues, as we have seen from all of the threads about them, and I am going with some other reason..... just not sure what.

Here's a gold border T42 that I have for comparison.

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-x.../s491/T42e.jpg

Cool card Tim. What is your thought on how that back, gold'ish line was created on your card? Woops, I see it was most likely a wet sheet transfer....duh :). So, I guess that other guess is probably correct and it is a WST......very good.

Actually I don't believe the image on the back of the T42 was created by stacking a sheet on another wet sheet. I think it happened on the press. It's just my opinion though.

I have peeled apart 2 gold borders and had a very similar mark left with nice straight borders like that. The two cards were never wet but were encased in a picture frame behind glass for 80 odd years. I think the original owner just had a stack and was framing them and got two together in one frame. Just a theory...

Joshua

Wouldn't a press go the opposite way of that transfer though?

I'm not sure of the exact printing method that was used back then. Maybe it was offset printing where a plate image transfers to a blanket cylinder and then onto the paper. If the paper is not fed, the blanket image will transfer to the impression cylinder. If that happens, a reversed image would print on the back side of the paper the same time the image is printed on the front. Normally the impression cylinder would be cleaned if a misfeed happened before feeding another sheet in to avoid the error reverse printing. This is most likely the reason for how detailed some wet sheet transfers are. Its because Tim's card is actually an impression cylinder transfer and not a wet sheet transfer.

Thanks Ron I couldn't have explained it that well.

Great post. This is my theory on the T206 back ghosts. Like Tim's card they are way too detailed for a stack transfer.

Your right Chris. Your ghost image cards are actually impression cylinder transfers which are much more rare than a wet sheet transfer of any kind. This is why i said no extra value on wet sheet transfers on the WST poll.

That's a great explanation. A WST that's just as solid can happen, but it's very unusual. It takes a new employee leaning on the just printed stack or something like that to make a really solid WST. I'm quite certain of it, but I'd just as soon leave out the details of how I'm sure:o

Steve B

That post is pure gold. Its the first time I (sort of) understand what's going on with these transfers.

I should have mentioned that the printing process I described contains three cylinders. The first is the plate with the design that gets inked. The design is normal. It gets transferend to the blanket cylinder that gets the image reversed. As the paper runs between the blanket and impression cylinders, the design is in the correct way on the paper. If the paper does not go in, the blanket cylinder prints the correct way image on the impression cylinder. Now when the paper passes inbetween, both sides get inked and the back gets a reverse image because its the right direction if looking at the impression cylinder. I hope I didn't make it even more difficult to understand.

That's a great explanation Ron. I think what you describe as an "impression cylinder transfer" would explain these.

http://t206resource.com/Images/Artic...tiesFronts.jpg
http://t206resource.com/Images/Artic...itiesBacks.jpg

Tim...are those on blank back t206's?

Yes they are. Most likely discarded due to the impression cylinder transfer, but really cool if you ask me.

i most certainly agree!

Here are a few more:

http://i138.photobucket.com/albums/q...psadbd6869.jpg
http://i138.photobucket.com/albums/q...psa2afad59.jpg
http://i138.photobucket.com/albums/q...ps38d078ae.jpg
http://i138.photobucket.com/albums/q...ps7fde781c.jpg

Be well Brian

So at one point the T206 ghosts were on before the ad back was printed. Likely slipped through quality control.

Sure glad they did :)

Hi Tim, Those are exactly what i'm talking about. Usually after the error reverse is printed, it removes nearly all ink from the impression cylinder so the next sheet that passes doesn't show the error. When setting up the press, it would be adjusted so exactly enough ink was transfered to the sheet per pass. Thats why we hardly never see over inked cards.

Those are incredible looking cards. I'm not too much of an error collector but would probably go after a Hal Chase Blue if I had the chance.

Truly an example of why this board is so great. Great thread

Ron,

That's a very interesting and plausible idea. The fact that this is a "Polar Bear" back might lend credence to this theory. The "tobacco product" might have acted like glue between two cards. Although there is a good sized stain in the upper left corner the back is very smooth and there is currently no "sticky" product on the card. So I am still unsure as to the origin...

Ed

This thread deserves a bump before fading into T205 thread obscurity. Good info for the T206 guys here too.