'48 Leaf Wagner/Robinson - Print Variation?

[tedzan]

Originally Posted by yanks87

Are these documented print variations, or just flukes? I have seen several representations of each of these, (Sans detail on Jackie's hat, and no color on John's left hand). Just wondering if these are on par with Aberson and Peterson variations. There was obviously 2nd printing of all the cards hence the other variations and the correction of the Hermanski error, but I have never seen these called out.

Hey guys,

Jackie's portrait is slightly shifted to the RIGHT, resulting in that skinny yellow sliver along his right shoulder. Ditto for the Wagner card. The Yellow ink was one of the 1st colors printed
on these cards (in the 4-color process).

I've seen this effect on a number of these 1949 LEAF BB cards. This is not a variation, but simply a printing anomaly.


TED Z

T206 Reference
.

[oldeboo]

It almost looks like that Robinson has a yellow strip on the outer edge of both shoulders. Seems like the image is slightly smaller, as opposed to a print shift. Maybe my eyes are failing me

[samosa4u]

Originally Posted by oldeboo

It almost looks like that Robinson has a yellow strip on the outer edge of both shoulders. Seems like the image is slightly smaller, as opposed to a print shift. Maybe my eyes are failing me

Oldeboo, you're a hundred-percent correct. The BLUE CAP variant is found with yellow bars on both of his shoulders. Leaf Gum Co. later corrected this and removed these yellow bars. Jackie's image wasn't shifted at all.



Now here is the corrected version below:



The yellow bars have been removed in the corrected version of this card. The image hasn't been shifted at all. Some black was added to his cap in order to give it a better shaded look. Furthermore, the magenta on his face was reduced.

[steve B]

The reduced magenta was just going back to using red instead. There's a whole separate print run where they used the actual magenta - Yes, the very pink ones.

The ones with the extra bars come both normal and with bright pink.

[samosa4u]

Originally Posted by steve B

The reduced magenta was just going back to using red instead. There's a whole separate print run where they used the actual magenta - Yes, the very pink ones.

The ones with the extra bars come both normal and with bright pink.

Steve, can you post some Jackies here and show us what you're talking about? Thanks

[steve B]

Well, that was supposed to have an image... The IMG link is there, and it showed in preview....
Onedrive is apaprently mostly hopeless for sharing images.

Anyway, here's the image from my spreadsheet. I don't own any of these, but collected images from online. Some of the spreadsheet images are my cards, but mostly commons.

L to right
shaded hat no bars at the sides
Plain hat red/blue/yellow/black bars at the sides.
Plain hat Magenta/blue/yellow/black bars at the sides.

I can see I'll have to do some cropping to get it bigger.

[steve B]

Ok, still small cropped, we'll do it the hard way.

shaded hat no bars



Unshaded hat regular red bars at sides



Unshaded hat bright pink bars at sides



A bit of pixelation here and there, wiht the images sourced from Ebay and auction houses and here the sizes and quality are variable. In the spreadsheet I resized most for consistency.

The Jackie is one of the tougher ones to spot the bright pink. I used the image I chose because the card is a bit out of register and has a random spot , both showing the pink more clearly.

On cards with red backgrounds or name boxes it's much easer.

[yanks87]

Originally Posted by tedzan

Hey guys,

Jackie's portrait is slightly shifted to the RIGHT, resulting in that skinny yellow sliver along his right shoulder. Ditto for the Wagner card. The Yellow ink was one of the 1st colors printed
on these cards (in the 4-color process).

I've seen this effect on a number of these 1949 LEAF BB cards. This is not a variation, but simply a printing anomaly.


TED Z

T206 Reference
.

The variation in my mind is not the yellow stripe, but the lack of detail and in the hat, and the missing color from Wagner's hand. The Musial has similar issues with the hat, it is almost as if the plates were changed (or wore down as the detail was pretty fine) for the second printing?

[tedzan]

Brian

The differences you're pointing to are simply printing variants. The LEAF cards are replete with such color differences.
Here are some examples in my set......












And then, there is BLUE or no BLUE.




TED Z

T206 Reference
.

[steve B]

Hopefully this link works

https://1drv.ms/x/s!AnK7duip0UvBxzpc...UZplq?e=YXqAtT

I made an excel spreadsheet with pictures of as many different 49 Leaf cards as I could find, and organized them by things like lines where bats or portraits meet the border, shading on hats, Bright magenta instead of red etc. They land in 5-6 distinct categories, perhaps more.

There are lots of small differences, and some transitional types where for example the hat is cut down away from the border on one color but not the other.

I don't think the spreadsheet is anywhere near complete.

[HawkFan70]

Ted - I've never seen that middle, baby blue Musial variant....really cool card!

[yanks87]

Originally Posted by tedzan

Brian

The differences you're pointing to are simply printing variants. The LEAF cards are replete with such color differences.
Here are some examples in my set......

Ted

I agree there are a TON of print variations, especially in regards to ink colors and plate order (typically black ink will always go down first). When a color block changes, like on the Aberson sleeves, that is a physical change to the blue plate. There had to be an actual replacement of that plate in order for the color block to change (short to long, long to short). I'm sure that there are more in the set than just the Robinson, Musial, and Wagner, but there are distinct plate changes as color block have changed or been removed. Or like that awesome Platt that you posted, some plates were totally missed! I guess my over arching question is should there be a designation for the difference like there is for Aberson and Peterson. Peterson is probably the closest to the Jackie/Stan change as part or all of the black plate detail was removed.

I'm fascinated by the prints, process and variations, being that I am a designer and do a ton of screenprinting. I mostly wanted to see if others thought that maybe the variations (outside of Hermaski) warranted a full designation, while the other changes don't?

[samosa4u]

Brian,

I love this thread you started.

If you look at the Post-war section, then you'll see that a few threads were started on this subject. It's very interesting, for sure.

I say YES, some of these print variations that we see should be given special designations. For example:



This is the most commonly found Jackie.



Now this one is the BLUE CAP variant. The black color is missing from his cap. This example is more difficult to find than the one above it, but it's not rare or anything like that. I also want to point out that the magenta found on his face is usually stronger for this BLUE CAP variant.

Again, this is a very interesting subject that very few collectors pay attention to. I think if you (or anyone) has the time to just sit around examining thousands of these cards, then a book could be written about it!

Oh, and by the way, I do have a Jackie, but it's the BORING one that I posted first. It's not a variant either. I would love to own the BLUE CAP variant someday.

[yanks87]

That's a good looking Jackie! I have a lower grade in the no detail version, and mine pales in comparison to your centering!!

[samosa4u]

Brian,

What you have is the BLUE CAP variant. And like I mentioned in my earlier post, the magenta is much stronger on this variant.

I don't own any of the examples that I posted above. I do have a PSA 4, but mine is the same variant as the SGC 6. I would like to own the BLUE CAP variant someday, but at the moment they are too damn expensive! I am hoping prices will come down in the future, but they might go the other way!

I'm going to take a wild guess here, but the BLUE CAP variant could have been a first printing. Afterwards, Leaf Gum Co. decided to make changes to the printing plates, colors, etc. I also think that certain variants should be priced higher than the others. For example, the BLUE CAP variant is harder to find, so it should be worth more. However, most collectors just care about one thing: the grade!

[tedzan]

Originally Posted by yanks87

Ted

I agree there are a TON of print variations, especially in regards to ink colors and plate order (typically black ink will always go down first). When a color block changes, like on the Aberson sleeves, that is a physical change to the blue plate. There had to be an actual replacement of that plate in order for the color block to change (short to long, long to short). I'm sure that there are more in the set than just the Robinson, Musial, and Wagner, but there are distinct plate changes as color block have changed or been removed. Or like that awesome Platt that you posted, some plates were totally missed! I guess my over arching question is should there be a designation for the difference like there is for Aberson and Peterson. Peterson is probably the closest to the Jackie/Stan change as part or all of the black plate detail was removed.

I'm fascinated by the prints, process and variations, being that I am a designer and do a ton of screenprinting. I mostly wanted to see if others thought that maybe the variations (outside of Hermaski) warranted a full designation, while the other changes don't?

You could say LEAF's printers were sort of "sloppy". And, if we were to "nit-pick" on all the possible permutations due to color printing anomalies, we would have numerous variations.

Illustrated here are the 98 subjects in the 1949 LEAF set. And, there are three additional (legitimate) variation cards [Aberson, Hermansk(i), and Peterson].

This gallery of cards in the set is from my 8-page article in Old Cardboard Magazine (Issue # 9). Check-it-out if you are interested in being more informed on this LEAF set.

Note....
Card # is on the left. On the Right is the COPYRIGHT date (1948 or 1949). All 98 of these cards were issued in 1949. 1st Series in the Spring, and 2nd Series (SP) in the Summer.









TED Z

T206 Reference
.