Quote:
Originally Posted by tedzan
Hi Steve
I appreciate what you are saying here. You speak from a Printer's experience. I, too, have had some Printing experience in a small Print Shop back in my High School years.
I singled out your last paragraph, because I, too, have for years tried to simulate "post-production" printing ink transfers with T206 cards. By simulating heat, humidity, and
with various solutions. I have NOT been able to get the ink to transfer from one card to another (even after lengthy periods of time). And especially regarding the ink on the
backs of these cards.....absolutely no transfers.
Apparently, American Lithographic used some very high quality (no-run) ink to print these cards. What is your thinking regarding this ?
TED Z
T206 Reference
. |
How a post production transfer can happen is a very complex puzzle. The try I made was a fairly worn common soaked in tap water, put in a folded paper, and clamped in a vise between boards for about a week (Maybe longer? I don't remember)
That didn't cause a transfer, as I assumed it wouldn't. It also didn't do any major damage to the card. Pressed in wood grain, which took it from a potential 1 to a for sure A... Not that a grade would really matter for a beater common.
The inks used would have to be studied at a level I don't have the resources to get to.
A slow drying ink like something with linseed oil as the carrier/hardener, could harden at different rates depending on temperature. Cards stored in a hot attic would "harden" faster, and probably wouldn't transfer after a fairly short time. (People who collect vises -yes, that's a thing- regularly coat with boiled linseed oil and bake them creating a nice hard glossy finish.
Stored in a humid cool environment? Those might not harden for decades.
And there's the catch. We can't usually know the long term storage, and don't know the makeup of the inks.
Adding to the complexity is that era saw a bunch of technological changes all at once.
The switch from stones to plates
The rise of chemical rather than natural ink colorants
Plus a couple others.
Both of the ones I mentioned would have probably required totally reformulating the inks, possibly with different hardeners and carriers.
One specific thought is that bright red was traditionally done with Cochineal, or carminic acid, which is derived from it. One is soluble in water, one isn't.
That's interesting, because the bulk of the post- production transfers we see are from red backs. SC and EPGD.
I think it's possible that some red ink was used that was one rather than another, and the colorant will dissolve and transfer, while a similar card wouldn't.
There's a group operating in the stamp hobby that's using various spectroscopy to determine ink make up. So far they've found some interesting stuff. Like dark red inks that were believed to be made using rust powder, but have now been proven to contain exactly no iron whatsoever...
And a group of stamps produced by three different companies on a few different types of paper, and are far more complex than the catalog indicates.
Like company A switching to a different paper just before the contract was given over to company B and is way more similar to the paper of company C several years later.
But until now there was no way to prove a stamp was actually company A but on that late use soft paper..... Enter the spectroscope, which says Company A had no white in the ink to get the right shade of green (or other colors) AND the sizing on the paper was different. So those stamps can be conclusively identified. And yes, they aren't common.
And yes, us stamp guys are sometimes insane enough to care that a particular copy is rare, even if the machine to know for sure costs thousands.