Needing T200 Expertise--

[dougscats]

I just bought a Cincinnatti team card on ebay. While I'm 99% sure that it's real, I'd like confirmation as it has some oddities to it.
I've been collecting T200's for a few years, and I have a dozen now. This looks just like the rest, even under the microscope, with one big difference:

It goes out of focus in several spots and has a strange bottom right hand corner/right hand border. I figured the ebay picture was a curled or damaged corner/poor photo or scan, but these anomalies [the bad crease/crack going from Clark through Groh, notwithstanding] are an actual part of the card/photograph.

I've never noticed such on any other card. What I'm thinking is that it was a poor factory print and without much quality control they let it go through. Can anyone tell me if that's likely the case?

Thanks.

Doug

[kcohen]

Looks real to me. I'm sure you have found with T200s that it's a huge asset to able to touch it and feel the glossiness of the photo. If you've handled a number of T200s and you've seen a reprint, you know which are authentic. And yes, I've seen them with some blur in the photo image.

PS - T200 is the first pre-war set I ever completed.

[asoriano]

Hi Doug,

Some T200's are found with that 'out of focus' look. The crease/crack in the bottom right corner does look odd, but like you said, it might just be an issue with the quality control.

Definitely real.

[bcbgcbrcb]

Looks okay to me

[Fred]

That's real. I've seen a few T200s that have been "out of focus" in different areas of the picture.

[drc]

The T200 front surfaces are covered in a film of clear gelatin, and there can be cracks to the gelatin first layer which is different-looking than regular cards.

The cards are gelatin-silver photos, which means a layer of gelatin was applied to the fronts to hold the photochemicals to the paper. This is why the T200s are glossy on front but not on back.