Show...me...your print variations!

[steve B]

Much older cards were sometimes done with multiple layers of similar colors, but that was pretty much out by the late 40's. Nearly everything you'll see postwar is just CMYK. None of those are missing, so it's down to if it's fading or not.

Yellow seems about right.
Blue Seems a bit light
Black/gray Shouldn't fade and looks about right
Red is obviously light.

Red can fade readily for a lot of the colorants, so fading wouldn't be a surprise.

But here, we have an extra complication. (Don't we always? )

Note how blue and red are in registration with each other. And how yellow and black are in registration with each other.
That's a sign that a 2 color press was used. Pretty cool.
Red and blue both being from the same pass and both being light makes me lean towards the sheet it was from being used for press setup. Adjusting the registration and ink levels. Probably an early pass, when the plate wasn't fully inked, and registration hadn't been fully adjusted.

Of course, it's possible that red and blue fade more readily than yellow and black on 49 bowmans.