t206 with no name

[drcy]

A few thoughts.

You could do tests on cheap Topps cards with white borders. They're lithographs too.

There are chemicals to dissolve printing inks-- and they've been known of. You can look them up--, but dissolving an ink and removing it clean from the surface without leaving anything or any damage is a different story. Duly note that dissolve doesn't mean making the ink invisible-- you can still see it.

I'd be interested to see how soaking or adding any chemical to the surface of a card changes its gloss and surface texture and shape. And what chemical residue is left behind. There are advanced, non destructive tests that can identify the chemicals. On the other hand anyone can smell bleach.

A question is did the original printers ink soak, if even just a bit, into the surface of the card, which would make it that much harder to remove without altering the surface. Again, dissolving doesn't mean making the ink invisible, and it would seem any sort of bleaching would be obvious.

Removing text can be done by anyone. It's removing it without leaving any signs of alterations that would be hard. After all, you can erasure off text, but that that can be seen with the naked eye. Forensic scientists tests inks on documents, but that involves physically removing small pieces (including paper stock) from the document and that can be seen on the document. If highly trained forensic scientists with masters degrees could remove a portion of the ink for testing without damaging the original document they would. They'd very much prefer not to damage the document and, if they could do it, would use it in their advertising that they have methods to remove ink without damaging a document.

If inks can be removed via solvent and wiping (or whatever) it could be duplicated by others. Meaning, duplicated by honest people seeing if it can indeed be done and report that it can be done if it can. Then, we'd see how this removal altered the card and what signs (such as chemical residue, damage to surface, other) give away the removal.