T206 Wet Sheet Transfer vs. Impression Cylinder Transfer

[Yoda]

The things I still need to learn. Right now I have a E196 Meusel up in the Mile High auction going on now which I thought was a WST but now think is a IST. But am I right? Confusion, always confusion. John

[Sean]

Thank you Steve. Everything that I know about T206 printing I learned from you and Ron.

[mrvster]

spot on! Erick is well versed like chris and the rest

[oldeboo]

I was recently doing the typical picking of the cherries and stumbled upon this guy. I was doing a once over, then I spotted something going on down at the bottom. My initial instinct was to assume it was some sort of mark or stamp, then I looked a little closer and immediately moved my mouse over to the “Buy It Now” button. There was already a lot of heat on it with over 30 views, so I had little choice!

My initial guess was a Wet Sheet Transfer, so I started doing some research on here. I’ve never seen a T206 like this, but discovered there are some out there after digging. Once I stumbled upon this thread, I now believe this to be an Impression Cylinder Transfer. While looking through other threads I found the Gibson card that is shown below. (credit to atx840 for that, if you don’t want me using it just let me know) I find the names at the bottom on the back to be virtually identical in clarity and strength of color. It is my understanding that Wet Sheet Transfers are often less bold than what we see with these two examples. One thing that makes the Murray a little tricky is that it has the dark colored Polar Bear back along with the ever so common scrap stains. To my eye, I’m not picking up much of any image detail on the reverse. Maybe some brown in the white areas, but that might just be scrap stain. I’ve also read on here, if I understand correctly, that some believe that there was potentially two different ways of printing the brown. The first being with the image details and name/team in one pass, then at times it was done separately. Maybe that is what is going on here or it’s just hard to see and determine.

For the members that know a lot about the printing process, is my assumption correct that the Murray card is an Impression Cylinder Transfer?

Also, has anyone seen this anomaly on a Polar Bear back before?

Any other thoughts?



I know this doesn’t do much for most, but I find these oddballs to be interesting diamonds in the rough.

[steve B]

Interesting card.
Impression cylinder stuff is usually the entire image.
It would be a little surprising if the only brown on Murray was the name and team, but that looks like it.

A wet sheet transfer in the factory can be nearly as clear and solid as a cylinder transfer under the right conditions. Like the new kid leaning on a stack of finished sheets.... usually only a few get wrecked. But if the plate has already been removed.....

I wouldn't possibly know how much trouble the new kid might be in...

[Pat R]

Nice pick up Trey that's a neat card.

Here's a McLean I have with a partial caption transfer on the back

McLean Back.jpg
McLean.jpg

and a Schlei that could be a factory wet sheet transfer

Schlei WST 1200dpi.jpg

[atx840]

Nice pickup, I bet if it was any other back you would see the rest of the brown ink layer.

Cheap way to get a back ghost.