T-206 Blue Old Mill Back to be in Next REA auction
 

Hello all T-206 collectors -

About a year ago I wrote about having a Blue Old Mill back in my collection. This card is unique because its face is an Elberfeld Washington portrait while its back is a BLUE Old Mill back. To the best of my knowledge only 3 blue Old Mill backs exist and only 2 of these have been authenticated and graded. This card is one of those.

I've decided to put my card up for auction at the next REA auction in December. So if you want to add a unique T-206 card for your collection, be on the look out for it.

Happy collecting and best regards to all. Howard

PS Apologies to Leon for posting this in the wrong place at first. Hope this time I got it right.

no scans????

It will be interesting to see since, if I’m not mistaken, the other two are from the 150/350 series.

I've seen two of these in person and they definitly are blue, good luck!

https://i.imgur.com/JTQMIiG.png

I was something of a skeptic, but I've seen this Elberfeld in real life and it's for sure blue. Happened to have my Elberfeld normal OM on me so we compared and the text is 100% a different color. GL with the sale H!

Uncle Nacki’s video is pretty convincing too. If it were a printer’s mistake you’d think they’d be from the same sheet...my series print history must be off. Did Ted Z have a take on these?

Elberfeld (Portrait-Washington) is from the same print group and would
have been on the same Old Mill sheets as the other 150/350 subjects.


http://www.t206resource.com/Print%20...Checklist.html

Well there ya go. I was misreading Ted Z’s Old Mill Reference post. My mistake, bring on the Blue Old Mills!

Agree with Chris. Have seen in person and have similar opinion

Blue OLD MILL Elberfeld
 

I have seen this Elberfeld (portrait-Washington), and like the t206kid (Hi Jay), I compared it with my OLD MILL Elberfeld card....and I agree it is BLUE.

Hi Jason (jggames), your observation is correct. The Elberfeld (portrait-Washington) card was printed in the 350-only Series. The fronts of this series
of T206 subjects were printed in a subsequent press run to the 150/350 series subjects.

The other two Blue OLD MILL cards, Walsh and Powell, are 150/350 Series subjects.


TED Z

T206 Reference
.

Hi Ted! Curious your thoughts on how these blue OMs came about?

Hi Jay

Having worked (part-time) in a print shop back in my H.S. days, I would see a number of printing mistakes.
Therefore I suspect that after a print run of PIEDMONT backs, the ink in the press was not changed to Black
ink in order to print OLD MILL backs. It's as simple as that.

Where there are 3 blue OLD MILL's, there will be more. I'm expecting number 4, sooner or later.

Take care, good friend.
https://photos.imageevent.com/tedzan...DMONT350bk.jpg > > > > > > https://photos.imageevent.com/tedzan...seblue50xb.jpg


TED Z

T206 Reference
.

Had it in hand as well, no doubt about it, and the seller is a great guy to boot!

I disagree with this and this Elberfeld Blue Old Mill is added proof.

Yes Elberfeld Wasington (portrait) along with Dahlen (Brooklyn) and
George Brown Washington were only printed with 350 series backs and no 150 backs but that's only because of their team changes right around the time the
150/350 subjects switched over to the 350 backs being printed on them.

Elbefeld was still with Washington in 1910 and 1911 and Dahlen was still
with Brooklyn in 1910 and 1911 so if they were printed with the 350 only
subjects there would be no reason for ALC not to print them with AB, Cycle,
Broad Leaf, Carolina Brights, Drum, Polar Bear, or Tolstoi.

They were printed with the same 350 backs as the rest of the 150/350 series
because they were on the same sheets with 150/350 subjects.

The t206's with the factory numbers on the bottom also reinforces this
Attachment 415041Attachment 415042

There are 26 different confirmed t206's with these factory numbers and
all of them are 150/350 subjects and one of those is Dahlen Brooklyn.
Attachment 415043

This is the list of confirmed t206's with the factory 30 on the bottom

Ames (portrait)
Beaumont
Clarke, Fred (portrait)
Clarke JJ
Cobb (bat on)
Dahlen Brooklyn
Dooin
Durham
Gilbert
Griffith (portrait)
Hemphill
Johnson (portrait)
Jones, Fielder (portrait)
Keeler (with bat)
Killian (pitching)
Mathewson (portrait)
McGraw (portrait no cap)
Merkle (portrait)
Overall (portrait)
Seymour (batting)
Shipke
Spade
Steinfeldt (portrait)
Stovall
Tannehill (L on front)
Wagner (bat on left shoulder

I'm looking forward to the listing and sale of the "Third" Blue Old Mill. I compared the Powell blue ink with other T206 blue inks. Originally I thought it was the same as the Polar Bear blue. But after more comparing against other T206's, it's a 100% match to Piedmont blue. We all know Piedmont's come in a range of different shades of blue but I was able to see an exact match of color comparing Piedmont's that would have been printed during the same time frame as the Print Group One Old Mill's.

I'm not sure exactly how these color error's happened. It could have been a lazy worker that didn't clean up the Piedmont blue ink before adding the Old Mill black ink. So the first and maybe the second sheet came out in blue. One other possibility is the sheet was a printers scrap but in poor lighting, the ink can look black, so maybe it looked fine and went into the production pile waiting to be cut and inserted into packs.

Even after all this time, I still haven't searched all my Print Group One Old Mill's for more Blue Ink backs. I have 45 chances of finding another one from my Print Group One collection. It's crazy that I remember 10 years ago having 5 graded T206's lined up in front of me on my desk and amazed how awesome they looked. It's been a crazy 10 years.

http://www.unclenacki.com/blueoldmill/sssss5cards.jpg

Nice comparison of colors Ron. I have never been a believer that they
would have discarded sheets where the back color is a little off like these
they were just advertising pieces put in cigarette packs. I also think it
would have been a lot more than 1 or 2 sheets even if it were a couple
of hundred sheets it would probably be lucky to have 15 or 20 survive
this long.