Print Error or Fading 1933 Goudey?

[chadeast]

Originally Posted by CK

I’d appreciate your thoughts on this, I have two 1933 #45 Larry Benton cards. I was comparing them and noticed a few differences, at first glance I assumed the raw card had simply faded over time.

Looking closer, I’m curious if this was a printers error, maybe a color pass or two was missed on this sheet, if that’s possible? The raw copy has a similar shade of red, but other colors look more dull and out of focus.

The biggest head scratcher I have regarding fading is found just under Larry’s left elbow. If this card had simply faded, why is the blue outline still visible under the arm, but the blue fill is completely gone?

Larry’s glove is similar, outline present, infill missing.

For the boxes in the upper right corner of the raw card some spots of blue are visible while the majority is not present?

The shadow under Larry is much more significantly faded than the green just behind on the infield.

There are also tiny dots on the face and reverse of the card which I’ve seen on other Goudey cards. I am not sure what to attribute those to.

Thanks for your input.

Hi Chris. I've been working on this set, as you have, for the better part of the last 9 months, and bought almost 300 cards in that time. I can't answer all of your questions, but I'll add my 2 cents.

The "spots" that you mention are prominent in many '33 Goudeys for sure. It's something that bothers me, and that I have had to keep an eye out for, since I've seen some cards grade VG and above with these spots present to varying degree. I assumed that they were mold of some type. IMHO, what you are seeing on this card is ageing/fading. But I can't explain the variation in fading of the same color. Maybe there was some printing issue. The Benton in particular was a very tough card for me to find in nice shape, so there could be something specific to this card. Many of them seem to have problems. In fact, I finally paid more than I should have for a couple of nice ungraded cards, still waiting for SGC to lower their prices so I can grade them. Good looking graded versions of this card in VG-VG/EX range aren't offered for sale in the last year often.

Something just occurred to me, #219 Mule Haas is also very tough to find in nice shape. I had equally hard time with it, and nice copies of that card go for big bucks. It has a similar color palette to the Benton in the upper third, purple/pink hues. Some correlation perhaps?