Need help with an odd Babe Ruth Kashin Card

[pencil1974]

So a while back I picked up this 5x7 Ruth that looks exactly like the Kashin photo premium. Problem is it's not the photo. I sent it to Leon to have him take a look and he thought it was modern. Which is fine but there is still some things that don't make sense to me.

The paper is thick and very high quality, so is the printing on it, its not an inkjet cheap copy, the halftone pattern is exactly the same as the Kashin regular card and the photo quality is really nice. The halftones dots matching is what through me off the most as this is not easy to match as you need a really nice hi-res scan, figure out the exact line screen and angle and also figure out the exact halftone size. Thats a lot of work (I'm a Creative Director for Leo Burnett, so lets just say I know Photoshop pretty well).

Last it has the old musty smell that all my old cards have and none of my new ones do. Leon had mentioned that you could replicate that smell so I did a little myth busters test and put a new piece of paper in an 1870's envelope I had with some 1800's family letters, deeds, etc for a month, and it didn't work for me. Maybe I didn't have it in the right spot but it was in my basement where I figure most musty things come from.

Anyway, any one have another modern version of this? That they can share, I find it hard to believe someone took up the time and money to make plates (just black), and have it run on an offset press for one 5x7 in the hopes of making a few bucks, the set up and prepress alone would have made it not profitable.

Looking for ideas here. Also I did send it to PSA and got the old N9.

(Top loop photo is the original Kashin, the second photo is the odd Ruth)

Thanks and hope everyone is having a good holiday season so far.

Brad