[Abravefan11]

The multiple plate theory could very well be true. I'm not sure I'm 100% on board with it, but it definitely sounds good.

I would note that of all the examples of Ritchey's I have looked at, that only a few 150's show the Doves as strongly as the Legendary card I posted earlier. They are not the norm, but there are many Piedmont and Sweet Cap 150's with faint dark blue that you can see and show the Dove's were meant to be there all along.

Along the same lines there are Piedmont 350's (note mine in the group of 9) where the Dove's don't show. However they are not the norm in the 350 series.

I would suggest that the 150's that show the Dove's strongly were the best of the best. Maybe the first cards run off of just cleaned plates or something along those lines.

When the 350 series begun ALC may have had some quality control review, cleaned up some of the images, improved ink quality, or even created new plates. For whatever reason this improvement brought out the Dove's though occasionally they would still not show up. I would consider these the very low end of the 350 run.

If there was a greater variation in the 150 or even 350 series I would lean more towards the multiple plate theory. But the cards are pretty consistent with a few exceptions.

Thanks for the imput from everyone so far.