T206 Blue Old Mill

[Jantz]

Originally Posted by srs1a

Buried in one of the blue OM threads is a scan of my OM Walsh. I believe it is the brother of the blue one (no matter how hard I squint, I can't make the back turn blue, though ). Below are side by side scans of my card and the blue one.



There are a number of print anomalies that are identical on both cards -- a weak black border on both the right and left hand side, a red blob on the I in Chicago, and another very small red blob near his hairline above his left eye. In the image below I've circled these areas.



I believe that these similarities are reasonably strong evidence that these 2 cards were produced by the same printing plates (note that there are some other anomalies that are not shared by the 2 cards namely the small dark splotch above his collar in my card and the small red spot on the second c in Chicago on the blue back).

Good information Scott!

Thanks for posting this,


Jantz

[vintagetoppsguy]

Yes, but all 4 borders are wider on the OM. If it is authentic, doesn't that mean it was probably hand cut from a sheet? Otherwise, how does one explain the obviously oversize white borders?

Also, the borders are much whiter on the OM. Maybe something bleached the the card (intentionally or not) and it also turned the ink blue.

[Rob D.]

Oh, if only this card were in a PSA holder, what fun there would be.

[CaramelMan]

Originally Posted by Rob D.

Oh, if only this card were in a PSA holder, what fun there would be.

huh? inside joke?

[Leon]

Originally Posted by CaramelMan

huh? inside joke?

Most likely he is referring to SGC getting a pass on Net54baseball and PSA not getting passes (on issues such as this). This board, to me, is always a little unfair to PSA. They deserve some of the criticisms, no doubt, but they seem to get blown out of proportion. Whereas SGC does not get taken to task the same way. Hope that helps explain it.

[CaramelMan]

Originally Posted by Leon

Most likely he is referring to SGC getting a pass on Net54baseball and PSA not getting passes (on issues such as this). This board, to me, is always a little unfair to PSA. They deserve some of the criticisms, no doubt, but they seem to get blown out of proportion. Whereas SGC does not get taken to task the same way. Hope that helps explain it.

perfectly....and from the Board Owner...well said sir...
you are very fair and even tempered it seems

[thehoodedcoder]

PSA would have never slabbed it. That much I CAN tell you. It has been an epic battle to cross my Nodgrass.

There is no way they are going to slab that as a "Blue back" on the label\

Kevin

[steve B]

Originally Posted by vintagetoppsguy

Yes, but all 4 borders are wider on the OM. If it is authentic, doesn't that mean it was probably hand cut from a sheet? Otherwise, how does one explain the obviously oversize white borders?

Also, the borders are much whiter on the OM. Maybe something bleached the the card (intentionally or not) and it also turned the ink blue.

There's a lot of size differences with most old cards. So having wider borders isn't odd.

The lightness could be lightness or the scanner, no way to tell without having a couple cards in hand. The T206s I have aren't consistently white or off-white.

I suppose it could have been changed by some chemical. Most black inks of the era are carbon -Either carbon black or lampblack- in a hardener like shellac or linseed oil (yeah, plus a bunch of other stuff that the companies kept as trade secrets) Carbon pigments don't change color all that readily.

Steve B

[steve B]

Found this while looking for info about inks. From 1904, includes pretty much everything you never wanted to know about various inks and how they are/were made.

http://www.archive.org/stream/inksth...crich_djvu.txt

Not in the best format for reading, but interesting anyway.

Some of what I've found makes me wonder if some of the darker black OM backs are actually blue, which can be made nearly black. And one of the common dark blues can be lightened.

But the same argument that goes against the blue OM works there as well, if the ink of the darker ones is really a blue-black, we should see a lot more blue ones. Just as we should eventually find a few more blue ones if it's an actual error in the color used.


As a funny technical note, the computer monitor I have is a flat panel one. I nearly bought an OM on Ebay because it looked BLUE! Then I sat up to type and as the angle I viewed it at changed it got darker, until it was black. Now I make sure I'm viewing at a good angle when I'm looking at cards.......

Steve B

[thehoodedcoder]

hi,

who is the current owner of the card? does anyone know this?

kevin