Revisiting the T206 Wagner "strip"

[mkdltn]

I believe there are more than six colors and that there are nine. eight colors plus a key. The key being the halftone image base on a photograph or ink drawing.

I have progressive proof books of cigar labels made by ALC contemporary in time frame with the T206. I will post some of the pages. the color anomolies are entirely explainable. Everything I see really points to this being a proof. it must have been done during the proving phase of production, more specifically on the top floor of the ALC building.

The way the color anomolies can be explained is as follows:

The artwork for each color was executed on stones or metal plates.
a separate one for each. When a proof was run each color was run one over the other through a proof press for my ALC cigar labels it went like this:

yellow (opaque)
red (opaque)
light brown (transparent)
Dark brown I think mostly opaque
Buff- this is the flesh color in the faces
light blue transparent
Dark blue (mostly opaque)
pink-transparent
lake or sometimes called medium red
finally Grey
And in the case of my cigar labels gold-think gold border cards.

In the case of the T206 card the color order is I believe a bit different due to the use of the Halftone image being used for the dark and midtone aspect of the image, at least in the portraits.

some inks were transparent meaning the color below showed through

Now what if you ran each color through the press before the artist was done?

the first picture (Proof1) is the first page of the proof book, technically the last as the book was compiled from back to front, This image is in my opinion is analogous to the proof strip, It does not match the production image. this was run before the corrections were made to the image. This is what I love about my proof books is that the image in front is very very unique.

The second picture (Proof2) is the original Lake plate run in black with the a printer's note in pencil saying what material needs to be added.

the third picture (Proof3) is from a second run in black ink which reflects the change that was made. this impression is glued into the book after the first black impression.

I hope this helps some as far as printing knowledge I am a graphic designer so I am somewhat familiar with modern techniques in printing. Not printer knowledge but enough. This is what started me on this whole thing, I saw the high res cards on the LOC site and was absolutley amazed at what I was looking at and HAD to find out how these were printed. As my wife will attest to this has become my obsession for the last two years and am satisfied that I now have a pretty darn good grasp of how 19th century lithography was done.