Probably time to talk about all those Factory30's on...

[t206fix]

Here are 4 of the klb1b cards, and notice they all have brown and green bleeding into the border. The GM card does as well.

Also, note that they hall have that little "center" line right above the name. Most of these cards are missing these as well.

Seems to be these are from the same sheet, or at least printed around the same time. Any thoughts?

[Pat R]

Hi Tony, I"m on a tablet right now but when I get back to my computer I'll check the
folder I have on these to see if I have any different Wilhelm's from the ones you posted.
I have scans of all the no prints that sold and I do know that all of cards had matching
color shifts.

[steve B]

Originally Posted by t206fix

Here are 4 of the klb1b cards, and notice they all have brown and green bleeding into the border. The GM card does as well.

Also, note that they hall have that little "center" line right above the name. Most of these cards are missing these as well.

Seems to be these are from the same sheet, or at least printed around the same time. Any thoughts?

Well that's a surprise. I can't see enough detail on the centerline, but they're probably identical. Which means they're probably from the same position on multiple sheets. If it was one sheet, they should have small differences, like some with the centerline and some without.


I'd think that printed at the same time is as certain as we can get without being there. Once it's set, the registration won't vary much at all.

[t206fix]

Sorry guys, my pictures of pictures are very small. Here are the larger scans, and hopefully you can see better:

Also, notice below his right elbow there is a small window of white by the border.

[Pat R]

Hi Tony, I do have one other Wilhelm from the ebay seller.

Wilhelm [1] - Copy.jpg

#1 in your group is #4 your #2 is #2 in mine your #3 is #1 in mine
and your #4 is #5 in mine. You're missing #3 here's a larger scan of
the front and back.

Wilhelm%20_3_.jpg Wilhelm%20Back%20_3_.jpg

in your large scans #3 and #4 are scans of the same card.

[steve B]

After a quick look, it gets more interesting.

They may be different positions.
I didn't see any 350's with the centerline, or any 350-460's without it. And there do seem to be slight differences, but they could just be inking levels.

[t206fix]

Factory line tends to move around on the back of these cards as well.
On three, the B cuts the Y right down the middle while on the same card the J doesn't touch the 0. On the other three, the B cuts the Y to the right and the J does touch the 0.

Steve, does this mean same sheet, but different backs
or different sheets?

[steve B]

Originally Posted by t206fix

Factory line tends to move around on the back of these cards as well.
On three, the B cuts the Y right down the middle while on the same card the J doesn't touch the 0. On the other three, the B cuts the Y to the right and the J does touch the 0.

Steve, does this mean same sheet, but different backs
or different sheets?

Nice catch! That would be a small difference between backs on the same sheet. I've seen it shown before, but haven't studied it much at all. So different positions on the sheet. The ones that are the same might be the same position on a different sheet.

It also means that the factory line wasn't part of the overall back, but was added individually. It's probably true for all the SC cards and Piedmont 350-460 cards. I'm not sure about others. It seems like a lot of extra work if you know a brand is only from one factory, but maybe.


Finding out how many slightly different backs there are for the same front and matching them with similar slight differences on the fronts should eventually give us an idea of how many cards the sheet was vertically. Sort of like the plate scratches, but not as obvious, and with no way to tell which one was above another one (Aside from miscuts, but there's too few of those. ) Or if there were two different fronts in the same vertical row and how many of each.