Were Group 1 Subjects Printed With EPDG Before PD 350 ?

[steve B]

Very nice catch Pat.

Another interesting thing is that it looks like the Pi50 has a solid dot while the EPDG has a ring of color. The scans aren't good enough to figure out which might have been earlier (If it's a mistake being corrected or progressive damage.) Do you have any of the actual cards? The card with the crumpled nail always has an indent from the nail itself, and I would hazard a wild guess that the circle is the head of a nail that was working its way loose. If there's an indent then that's the likely explanation.

I think the P150's were at least three different print runs with slightly redone art between them. Three for sure, and maybe a fourth. I'm not sure that differences will be found for all the cards, so perhaps run 1 was done three times, run 2 only twice and run 3 only once.
The 350's as far as I can figure were a totally new thing and the art was slightly redone for at least some of the subjects if not all of them. I think we'll eventually see some really tough cards that I might technically class as wrong backs - cards with the 150 art but 350 backs.

[Pat R]

Originally Posted by steve B

Very nice catch Pat.

Another interesting thing is that it looks like the Pi50 has a solid dot while the EPDG has a ring of color. The scans aren't good enough to figure out which might have been earlier (If it's a mistake being corrected or progressive damage.) Do you have any of the actual cards? The card with the crumpled nail always has an indent from the nail itself, and I would hazard a wild guess that the circle is the head of a nail that was working its way loose. If there's an indent then that's the likely explanation.

I think the P150's were at least three different print runs with slightly redone art between them. Three for sure, and maybe a fourth. I'm not sure that differences will be found for all the cards, so perhaps run 1 was done three times, run 2 only twice and run 3 only once.
The 350's as far as I can figure were a totally new thing and the art was slightly redone for at least some of the subjects if not all of them. I think we'll eventually see some really tough cards that I might technically class as wrong backs - cards with the 150 art but 350 backs.

Hi Steve,
The Piedmont I posted is mine I don't think there's an indentation but I'll
take a closer look at it.

One of the EPDG's has the solid dot while the other has the ring and there's
also varying examples with the PD150's. My thought was that it was related to
how much ink was in that area. As you point out there might be a very small % of PD 350's with this mark that came from the run that produced the tough
350's that Luke is talking about like Lundgen.

Here's scans of the remaining 8 PD150's I found.
As you can see the spot is very faint on the last two.
Owen A PD 150.jpgOwen B PD 150.jpg
Owen C PD 150.jpgOwen D PD 150.jpg
Owen F PD 150.jpgOwen G PD-.jpg
Owen J.jpgOwen K.jpg

[steve B]

Those are really interesting. Especially the last two.

Usually a ring shaped defect is a fisheye, but it's usually a dark center with a light ring around it. The last two, especially the larger scan are like that, but the others are either the solid spot or the dark ring.

I suspect what's there is a drop of one of the platemaking chemicals that got there while the plate was being laid out. So the full spots are the earliest ones, the dark ring ones printed later after the original spot had a chance to wear, and the last two with light colored rings are actually an attempt at correcting the dark ring by stoning it off the plate. Basically erasing it with a limestone stick.
It could also be plate damage and/or a nailhead sticking up from the impression cylinder.

Steve B

[steve B]

Here's another Owen oddity. A recurring blue spot about in the center of the green area below his arm.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/1909-T206-Fr...0AAOSwal5YF5yP

http://www.ebay.com/itm/1909-T206-Fr...AAAOSwKOJYF5wl

Steve B

[Joshchisox08]

Could be a stretch but it appears as though there's a slight/light circle on his sleeve here as well???

[Pat R]

Steve,

I took a closer look at my Owen. The cards not in great shape but I
don't feel or see any indentation. The spot on the front is about at
the upper right hand tip of the U in quality.
img867.jpg
img873.jpg
img873 - Copy.jpg

[steve B]

Ok, so probably not a loose nail.

Steve B

[Pat R]

Originally Posted by steve B

Those are really interesting. Especially the last two.

Usually a ring shaped defect is a fisheye, but it's usually a dark center with a light ring around it. The last two, especially the larger scan are like that, but the others are either the solid spot or the dark ring.

I suspect what's there is a drop of one of the platemaking chemicals that got there while the plate was being laid out. So the full spots are the earliest ones, the dark ring ones printed later after the original spot had a chance to wear, and the last two with light colored rings are actually an attempt at correcting the dark ring by stoning it off the plate. Basically erasing it with a limestone stick. It could also be plate damage and/or a nailhead sticking up from the impression cylinder.

Steve B

Because of the recent discussions I took another look at these. I have seen
where it was speculated that the printing of the group 1 (150/350) EPDG
subjects might have begun during the 150 series printing. If it could be
established (highlighted in red) that this is the reason for the differences in the dark spot on
the sleeve the two different variations in the EPDG examples could prove that
they were.

Steve,
If you had high resolution scans of two or all three different degrees of that
spot could you tell if they were the result of plate wear ?


On a comparative note the Group 2 (350) only Tolstoi's have a similar
pattern when you look at the numbers.

Most of the group 2 350 only subjects are tough and some of them are
extremely tough with a Tolstoi back. There are 314 different subjects
that are considered to be possible with the Tolstoi back. There are 65
subjects that are unconfirmed and all of them are print group 2 subjects.
One explanation for this could be that the printing of the Tolstoi backs
didn't start until later in the print group 2 printing.

I just started researching a group of three print group 2 subjects and
when I get the numbers together I will post them here.


Here are the different examples so far. The fifth one from
the left and the first one on the bottom left are the EPDG's
the rest are all PD150's.

Owen Group.jpg

also all of them have this spot that is missing Yellow.
Owenper20Darkper20Spotper20Onper20Sleeve - Copy.jpg

[steve B]

High res scans would tell me a lot.
Sometimes wear is hard to tell because of how variable the inking levels were. I could probably tell if the last version was an attempted repair.

Someday I'll have to draw some pics explaining wear and inking to show how similar they can be. (And impression pressure, and the wetting of the stone/plate and .......

Steve B

[Pat R]

I only have the full version but here's one that is either the very beginning or
after it was fixed if it was.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/1909-T206-Fr...IAAOSwH4NZgqXQ

And another full version
http://www.ebay.com/itm/T206-Frank-O...UAAOSwfVpYujDz

[steve B]

I'm almost certain that's not a repair. The screening is far too even and matches up perfectly.

Repair on the plate would be by stoning off the big spot, then redrawing the dots either by hand, or by laying down another piece of transfer. It's incredibly hard to do that and get it looking exactly right.

As an aside, the one from Deans has a transfer laydown problem on the frame at the upper left.

The transfers were made by printing with very thick tarlike ink onto basically tissue paper, then laying that on the stone in the right spot with some solvent. When it was good and stuck down water was used to remove the tissue. Some times the tissue would tear, and that is probably the cause.

Depending on how common the spot is, it could have been on the master stone, either early and later fixed by remaking the master, or more likely later when a bit of something got on the stone

Comparing the cards on Ebay, there are a couple 350's with decent scans
http://www.ebay.com/itm/T206-Owen-/3...QAAOSwDrlZfjUb

http://www.ebay.com/itm/1909-T206-Fr...EAAOSw9fNZgleV

Both are screened differently from all the 150's I looked at, it's more noticeable in the face.

A few things I haven't quite figured out on it.
The shape is interesting, being an irregular octagon. That's odd as I can't think of a way that shape was created. It's too uneven to be a nut or bolt head, and probably too uneven to be from a bit of scrap paper from an octagonal hole punch.
There's also a missing halftone dot just under the lower left of the bog dot. That could be missing, or not picked up because of whatever caused the spot, or just another bit that didn't transfer properly.

Steve B