T206 Claude Ritchey & The Doves

[Abravefan11]

When I first began collecting Boston National T206's I didn't notice any difference in the Claude Ritchey backgrounds. Then while buying a Ritchey the seller pointed out to me that the one being offered was the tougher "Dove" variation. That caused me to immediately check all of my cards for this background. I ended up having a couple but it didn't seem like a definitive variation to me and that began my search for what made them different.

I have read several different theories but in the end I think it's simply a matter of print quality.

The T206 consists of a 6 color printing process. These colors are layered creating the multicolored backgrounds.

1)Yellow 2)Black 3)Brown 4)Blue 5)Dark Green 6)Red

The bottom of the Ritchey background was first a layer of yellow, then blue, creating the light green. Look at the arms or the body in several of the pictures below where the registration is off slightly and you will see either yellow on top or blue on the bottom or the reverse where the colors don't overlap exactly.



Then a layer of dark green was added on top of that. This I believe this is also the color that when layered on top of the blue sky gives the dark blue appearance of clouds that form the Dove.

If you look at the progression of cards below you will see that the cards lacking in dark clouds also have far less dark green on the bottom of the background. The dark green layer stops at or just above Ritchey's elbow on the lighter cards and covers the entire light green layer on the darker examples. The darker the bottom the darker the clouds on top.



Most 150 series don't appear to have the Dove image and most 350 series do. As you will see from looking at the Piedmont 150 the Dove image is faint but it is there. I believe the printing process or quality control was improved between the two series bringing out what was already there.

If this is redundant in anyway I apologize. I would love to hear anyone else's thoughts or opinions.

[Matt]

Tim - very interesting. I always thought the CW was that the printing quality on the later runs was less then on the previous ones.

[toppcat]

The black cap Matty has a blue halo around his head and upper torso that varies in intensity from card to card. It's very noticeable on some cards:

[Abravefan11]

I would imagine that like the Ritchey, the Matty halo would be more pronounced on cards with a darker green bottom.

[Abravefan11]

Jamie-

I too thought there may be more colors to the printing process, but I wasn't able to find anyone else that thoughts so. So I used the 6 color process when looking at the cards that seems to be the consensus for now as to how the cards were produced.

If there were additional colors that changes things. I still think there is a correlation between the dark green grass and dark blue clouds on the Ritchey. I think the same color application produced both.

[tedzan]

My experience with observing several cards of Ritchey with these backs......

Piedmont 150
Sovereign 150
Sweet Cap 150
HINDU
EPDG

....is that the doves are not visible in the pale blue sky.
Although, under magnification, some of these cards have a very faint hint of
the doves.

The cards of Ritchey with......

PIEDMONT 350
Sweet Cap 350
Old Mill

....clearly show the doves.

I attribute this phenomena to a better quality of Blue (and other) ink(s) used
in the printing of 350 Series cards in 1910.


TED Z

[Abravefan11]

Ted-

My Piedmont 150 shows the Doves are present, just not as bold.

An even better example of the Piedmont 150 is the one that sold in the recent Legendary Auction.



And if you think the difference is in the blue ink, do you not agree that there is a correlation between the dark green and clouds on the cards?

[tedzan]

JAMIE

You noted......
"I have often read that the T206 printing process contained six colors -- the ones you mentioned. I've always wondered where this
theory comes from."

Joseph Palmer Knapp (founder of the American Lithographic Co.) was an innovative force in the Lithographic printing industry and in
1895 he got a patent for his "6 cylinder color process". This process greatly improved the quality of color lithography; and I'd guess
that Knapp employed it in the printing of all their sports and non-sports cards during the period of 1909 to 1916.

TIM

As I noted......although, under magnification, some of these cards (150 series) have a very faint hint of the doves. It appears as if
the doves have always been part of the sky effect. And, their visibility is a function of printing inks.

I arrange my T206 sets in a binder separating the successive series. And, I can tell you that by doing this, it becomes very obvious
that the 350 series cards have a richer BLUE quality about them (than the 150 series cards).


TED Z

[jimonym]

Tim, the Legendary P150 Ritchey that you've posted raises an interesting set of possibilities.

In the REA Piedmont Plank thread I tried to explain a bit about how T206 printing plates were probably created (check out mkdltn's excellent posts as well). I won't post all of that again, but in a thumbnail, based on commercial lithographic processes circa 1910, it was a very simple procedure to create a production printing plate that included more than one copy of the same card -- hence the vertical column layout that seems to have predominated. The same processes also would have made it very simple to have any particular card be printed from multiple production plates. So for example, Claude Ritchey may have been printed from 2 or 3 or 4 or more printing plates, each having different configurations of cards but all containing Claude Ritchey or a column of Claude Ritcheys.

I've come to believe that most T206s appeared on more than one printing plate in exactly this way. Many folks on this board are trying to figure out front-back combinations of T206 cards and are looking for correspondences between brands -- Ted several times has shown us his great sets of American Beauty, Broad Leaf, Carolina Brights, and Drum cards all having the same player on the front. But to some extent all of us who are interested in these correspondences are knocking our heads against a wall. There just aren't many clean rules of the kind that say, well, if a 350 series card can be found with EPDG, then it can also be found with Old Mill and Tolstoi. If cards only appeared on one printing plate, we'd see more of these kind of rules with regard to brand distribution. That we do not see that makes me believe that most T206s were indeed printed from multiple printing plates.

To circle back to Ritchey, the variations in Dark Blue ink and "doves" and grass may not just be because of variations in ink levels with one printing plate. The variations may also be across several printing plates that included Ritchey, and across series (150 and 350) and the timeline of production. That there's a Piedmont 150 Ritchey with strong "doves" and plenty of Piedmont 150 Ritcheys with no doves at all seems to me to support this multiple plate theory.

[jimonym]

Tim, nice post.

I have often read that the T206 printing process contained six colors -- the ones you mentioned. I've always wondered where this theory comes from.

I've looked at a lot of T206s under magnification, and the oft-repeated yellow-black-brown-blue-dark green-red set of colors just doesn't match up.

I haven't examined Ritchey specifically, but if I looked at it I'd expect to see:

• Yellow
• Light Blue (seen as pure color in the doves in the sky, overlaid on the yellow to create the lighter green grass by Ritchey's shoulders, and used to show shadow on his uniform, particularly under his right arm)
• Dark Blue (overlaid on the light blue to create the darker sky, mountain or trees on the horizon, and overlaid on yellow to create the dark green grass)
• Flesh Tone (Ritchey's face and hands)
• Pink (highlights on Ritchey's cheeks and other areas of his skin, and overlaid on blues and yellow to create purplish section on horizon)
• Red (lips, hat, collar, belt, glove)
• Grayish Silver (used to create shadows, especially on his uniform)
• Black (hair, bat knob, glove)
• Brown (hair, bat knob, glove, name and team line)

Looking at your Ritchey examples, it looks to me like the main printing difference between the 150 series and 350 series examples is in the Dark Blue ink layer. In the 150s, it's limited to the lower portion of the grass, Dark Blue over Yellow creating the darker green (whereas Light Blue over Yellow creates the lighter green grass). In the 350 series examples, the Dark Blue has been expanded, occupying much more of the grass section in the lower part of the card (more dark green grass) and extending up into the sky (creating the dark sky around the "doves"). This was a change done on the Dark Blue printing plate.


Jamie