wet sheet, scrap, ghost confusion...

[steve B]

The Ames/Cobb is a fascinating card.

I wouldn't call it a wet sheet transfer since it's not reversed.
It's also two colors, which shouldn't happen on a card that age.

And it appears factory cut, so probably an example of a scrap that got released.

I've been trying to figure out how it could have been caused, And having little luck. The closest I can get is that a sheet was printed on the wrong side of the paper, but faintly. Either the soft side didn't print well, and appeared weak (Unlikely, since the backs almost always look good) Or both color passes were similarly weak. - A large coincidence.

On a modern two color press it's easy, with old single color presses it's very unusual.

I've also thought about how something like that could be made after printing. And having just as little luck. Short of running a real card through a printer there's no easy way. And a real card with modern printing would be fairly easy to spot in a good scan. Even then it would be a lot of work to get it to print as weak as it is, and in the right place. Other methods should be possible, but would be a huge effort, probably too much for one card.

Steve B
PS- stage 1 of attempting to make an offset transfer as talked about in another thread is underway. The beater is clamped in the vise between paper and a couple boards. I'll leave it there for a while and see if that does anything.