Of Blue OLD MILL T206's....and such

[tedzan]

Hey guys, sorry to re-visit this subject, however........

I was rummaging thru an old box of T206's in my desk drawer; and, I found this reprint Lundgren with a Blue OLD MILL back.
The blue ink is the same as the unique Walsh that was graded at the National.

But note....the difference in the vertical size of the stylistic frame on this Lundgren card.

Has anyone made this same A-B comparison of the Walsh card and a T206 Black OLD MILL back ?


..






Actually, I hope my observation here is wrong, pertaining to the Walsh card. I'd like to think the Walsh card is real.


TED Z

[E93]

Great observation Ted. It will be interesting to see an A-B comparison of a scan of the Walsh with a regular Old Mill.
JimB

[ullmandds]

nice catch, Ted...if only more of us had boxes of t206's all over the house!!!!!!

The plot thickens!

[pgellis]

My initial thought about the Walsh, Blue Old Mill card was that it had larger borders on the card, much like the Lundgren reprint above.

[atx840]

Crude comparison, but the print is spot on when overlaid.

[Leon]

Ok then...how much for this beauty? Bidding starts at 30k!!

After seeing Ted's old reprint I am at least having a bit of a pause with that new Blue Old Mill in the holder.....and I have been a believer in it being real.

[t206hound]

Originally Posted by tedzan

The sequence of the 6-color process employed by American Litho. to print these T-cards as I understand it, is as follows........

Yellow

Black

Brown

Blue

Green

Red


TED Z

You are missing Pink. It was not a mix of colors that produced pink; and pink and yellow produced orange. I also believe a separate Buff pass was done.

[Jantz]

I've held off since the National and really didn't want to comment on this card, but there are a few comments that I would like to post.

The color of the ink on the back of this blue Old Mill is not an issue with me. Piedmont 350-460 Factory 42 cards have a lighter shade of blue ink, but I've seen Piedmont 350s with the lighter blue ink too. I sold an Unglaub on the B/S/T not long ago that had the lighter blue ink. Tim-Abravefan and I have spoken about this in the past and I have seen other Piedmont 350s since then with the lighter shade of blue.

I used to work for a retail chain years ago and part of my job was mixing paint. If you added so much as one drop more of tint to the base white paint, it would throw the color completely off. The same can be said if you didn't add the correct amount of tint the recipe called for.

I have no clue how the inks were mixed to print these cards. Maybe Steve B. can comment on that.

Even if you look at Polar Bear backed cards, the color blue is not always consistent. Maybe this is because they were inserted directly in with the tobacco or maybe its from 100 years of aging & wear. I can't honestly say.

As far as this being the only blue Old Mill example ever surfacing, this is also not an issue with me. How many other unique T206s have we seen in just the past few years?

A Murr'y with a Piedmont back was discovered not long ago and to my knowledge it is still the only one known.

A Murr'y with a Sweet Caporal back also was discovered. It too was unique until two more surfaced.

With all the scraps, proofs, blank backs and other printing anomalies out there, a blue Old Mill is not impossible for me to believe. Especially after seeing the Black Swamp Find.

I had the pleasure of talking to the card owner and going over the card with a loupe. In the end, I have to believe what my eyes tell me and I think the card is legit. If I am wrong, then so be it. I can live with that.


Jantz

[steve B]

Originally Posted by Jantz

I used to work for a retail chain years ago and part of my job was mixing paint. If you added so much as one drop more of tint to the base white paint, it would throw the color completely off. The same can be said if you didn't add the correct amount of tint the recipe called for.

I have no clue how the inks were mixed to print these cards. Maybe Steve B. can comment on that.


Jantz

Mixing the ink is a lot like mixing paint, except there's no base. There are recepies for colors, Stuff like 1 blue,2 white, 1/4yellow. The pressman (Or woman these days-very few of them on the 70's, fewer in the 1910 era)
Takes a bit of ink of each color and puts them on a piece of glass and mixes the ink till it's one color. The overall quantity is done from experience based on how many sheets are needed or how many can be made in a day.
The ink is very sticky and thick. Thicker than paint, maybe like an artists oil paints.

So the actual color can vary from day to day. If it needs to be precise the press operator can weigh the inks before mixing. I only saw that a couple times since modern presses are quick enough to do most jobs in a day.

The ink then gets spread into a tray that allows it into a series of rollers that eventually ink the plate. If the ink is getting too dry or is slightly off the operator can add color in that tray. 70's presses had controls to allow more or less ink to the rollers as well. I'm not sure about presses in 1910, but they probably had similar controls.

So the operator has a lot of control over the color and density of the ink that reaches the paper.

And it really wouldn't be unheard of for an operator to add some dark blue to a tray of black if they were running low very late in the day.

Steve B

For those of you who appreciate industrial practical jokes - One common bit of hazing is when a non-pressman watches ink being mixed they tell the new guy that they know it's mixed enough when it heats up. "Here see for yourself" And when you put your hand over the ink a quick slap puts it into the ink. Which is hard to wash off. I only ran a press for a week, but got to be on both ends of that one