T206 Claude Ritchey & The Doves

[jimonym]

Tim, the Legendary P150 Ritchey that you've posted raises an interesting set of possibilities.

In the REA Piedmont Plank thread I tried to explain a bit about how T206 printing plates were probably created (check out mkdltn's excellent posts as well). I won't post all of that again, but in a thumbnail, based on commercial lithographic processes circa 1910, it was a very simple procedure to create a production printing plate that included more than one copy of the same card -- hence the vertical column layout that seems to have predominated. The same processes also would have made it very simple to have any particular card be printed from multiple production plates. So for example, Claude Ritchey may have been printed from 2 or 3 or 4 or more printing plates, each having different configurations of cards but all containing Claude Ritchey or a column of Claude Ritcheys.

I've come to believe that most T206s appeared on more than one printing plate in exactly this way. Many folks on this board are trying to figure out front-back combinations of T206 cards and are looking for correspondences between brands -- Ted several times has shown us his great sets of American Beauty, Broad Leaf, Carolina Brights, and Drum cards all having the same player on the front. But to some extent all of us who are interested in these correspondences are knocking our heads against a wall. There just aren't many clean rules of the kind that say, well, if a 350 series card can be found with EPDG, then it can also be found with Old Mill and Tolstoi. If cards only appeared on one printing plate, we'd see more of these kind of rules with regard to brand distribution. That we do not see that makes me believe that most T206s were indeed printed from multiple printing plates.

To circle back to Ritchey, the variations in Dark Blue ink and "doves" and grass may not just be because of variations in ink levels with one printing plate. The variations may also be across several printing plates that included Ritchey, and across series (150 and 350) and the timeline of production. That there's a Piedmont 150 Ritchey with strong "doves" and plenty of Piedmont 150 Ritcheys with no doves at all seems to me to support this multiple plate theory.

[ethicsprof]

Tim C,
I love seeing this Ritchey discussion! Great thread.
I got into Ritchey so much some years back after the lengthy epdg
discussion involving the doves among other things that I framed a Fan Craze
Game box with the Fan Craze Ritchey affixed to the bottom and placed it
in the middle of my office wall.
********** That SGC 92 Ritchey 150 Pied which you display does show
a striking dove---a real beauty. It certainly makes me bend toward Jamie's
multiple plate contention. I must admit that the part of me that wants to
clear up T206 mysteries doesn't want to entertain this contention. Yet, Jamie's point that 'there's a Pied 150 Ritchey with strong doves and plenty of
PIed 150 Ritchey's with no doves at all seems to me to support the multiple
plate theory' cannot be swept away. And perhaps most disturbingly and even hauntingly accurate is Jamie's "there just aren't many clean rules...:

[Abravefan11]

The multiple plate theory could very well be true. I'm not sure I'm 100% on board with it, but it definitely sounds good.

I would note that of all the examples of Ritchey's I have looked at, that only a few 150's show the Doves as strongly as the Legendary card I posted earlier. They are not the norm, but there are many Piedmont and Sweet Cap 150's with faint dark blue that you can see and show the Dove's were meant to be there all along.

Along the same lines there are Piedmont 350's (note mine in the group of 9) where the Dove's don't show. However they are not the norm in the 350 series.

I would suggest that the 150's that show the Dove's strongly were the best of the best. Maybe the first cards run off of just cleaned plates or something along those lines.

When the 350 series begun ALC may have had some quality control review, cleaned up some of the images, improved ink quality, or even created new plates. For whatever reason this improvement brought out the Dove's though occasionally they would still not show up. I would consider these the very low end of the 350 run.

If there was a greater variation in the 150 or even 350 series I would lean more towards the multiple plate theory. But the cards are pretty consistent with a few exceptions.

Thanks for the imput from everyone so far.

[jimonym]

Tim, I think you're probably right that the more subtle variations of the Ritchey card are the result of either reduced Dark Blue ink levels in the press or worn plates that didn't hold the ink as well as they once did. There are countless countless T206s out there with these slight differences in printing, though not as noticeable as the "doves" here. But the difference between pronounced "doves" and barely noticeable "doves" is a difference in ink levels. The difference between the presence of the "doves," no matter how light, and no "doves" is a difference in printing plates, I'd suggest.

I think the multiple plate theory answers a number of different T206 problems, but it isn't the explanation for everything. I do think it's plausible though that with Ritchey we could be looking at a 150 series card that appeared on at least two plates, one with the "doves" and one without -- and perhaps the one lacking the "doves" entered production first and ran longer than the "doves" plate. Then when the 150 series cards were repeated as part of the 350 series, the same two plates were run again, but in inverse numbers -- more time in production for the "doves" plate and less for the "no-doves." Or perhaps there was a new plate made, or several, having the "doves." That would account for the differences in populations between the two series.

Edited to add:
Keep in mind that in lithography each color requires its own printing plate, so the differences we're discussing here applied only to one plate (in the set of 9 or 8 or 10 or whatever the number was that created the image of Ritchey), the one for Dark Blue ink. All the other colors seem to be identical for both "doves" and "no-doves" examples. So it could also have been the case that all Ritcheys, whether they have the "doves" or not, shared all their printing plates but one, and we see a difference today because Ritchey and this sheet of T206s had an alternate Dark Blue ink plate. Hope that makes sense.

[tedzan]

My 4 cards of Ritchey (three 150 Series and an EPDG) do not show even a hint of the the "dove's sky". Your theory,
Jamie, of multiple plates of a given T206 Subject, I think has a lot of merit.

Another thought I might add.....American Litho. printed 1000's of Ritchey's during the 150 series press runs in 1909.
As these plates wore, they replaced them with new plates somewhere along this process as they extended Ritchey
into the 350 series press runs in 1910. These new plates included the "dove's sky".




TED Z

[Matt]

Ted - I can see faint hints of it in both your Piedmont and your SC.

[Abravefan11]

Jamie-

I think a major point you and I differ on right now is that you believe there two be two cards. One with Dove and one without.

I think they all would have Doves had they been printed with the same quality. It's the poor quality that keeps the Dove from showing. Not the absence of a Dove on the stone.

Does that make sense?

Ted-

Your Sweet Caporal is beginning to show the Dove though it is very faint. Notice the little bits of dark blue around Ritchey's bat and head and a little patch just off center in the top.

Also look at how the dark green runs slightly higher on that card compared to the other three.

This is the main point that I have been trying to make. The dark clouds that produce the Dove are proportional with the dark green on the bottom of the cards. The higher the dark green ink carries up the card, the more dark blue in the sky.

I know nothing of the printing process but it seems as though the ink was applied from the bottom to the top and wasn't sufficient on the earlier cards. It ran out early thus not printing the entire image of the clouds. Once corrected through whatever change the entire image printed more consistently.

Look at the difference in how high the dark green carries on these examples in relation to how dark the clouds are.



After looking at a lot of Ritchey's I have never seen one with dark green far up the bottom with no Dove. And I have never seen a Dove with the dark green lower on the card. But it is T206 and it could be out there.

[Brian Weisner]

Hi Guys,
I thought I was the only one who cared about Ritchey.... I remember starting a thread just like this one a few years ago... I'll pull out my Ritchey's tonight and post them over the weekend.
Be well Brian

[jimonym]

Hi Tim.

That does make sense. I don't know that you're right, and I don't know that I'm right. Nor do I know if you're wrong, or if I am. That's part of what makes T206s interesting.

I do think though that if the Ritchey variations were due only to Dark Blue ink levels that we'd see some kind of similar variations in the cards that came from the same sheet. Not the occasional card with slightly more or less blue, but a lot of examples of a handful of other T206s that have a lot of gradation, as we see with Ritchey. It would be interesting, for myriad reasons, if anyone could point to others.

Also, if we assume that Ritchey was printed in vertical columns, then it seems weird to me, although maybe it could be possible, that the Dark Blue ink would show such fluctuations from the bottom of the card to the top, over and over across the surface of the larger printing plate. I could see maybe the top card, or top couple, in a column not getting inked properly, but not the entire column of cards. And even if it was an ink distribution problem, wouldn't there be Ritchey cards with no dark green grass (meaning that no Dark Blue ink at all reached the paper)?

Hope that's clear. Man, it's hard to use words to describe pictures.

[T3s]

Hi,
I felt obligated to post this. Hope this assist with the topic. Looks like the doves were meant to be.

Craig

[jimonym]

Craig, great card. Thanks for posting it. The pressman absolutely nailed the registration.

Well, the conundrum seems to be why most 150 versions of the card have no doves at all or only very light ones while most 350 versions of the card have quite obvious doves. I think the key word there is "most." If it were all one way or all the other, theories and guesses would be easier to prove.

[Abravefan11]

Craig-

Thanks for posting. Great card. If it ever needs a new home...

The majority of 150's don't show the Doves at all or only some bits and pieces of them. The best one's that do like the high grade I posted from the Legendary auction or the proof that you posted are still not as deep in color as the 350's.

Some 350's don't show the Dove like my Piedmont 350 but they are not the norm in the series. Most do have the deeper colors like Ted Z stated he has seen across the board in the 350 series.

[Brian Weisner]

Hi Guys,
Here are my Ritchey's:

All are Piedmont 150's



Sweet Cap 150/649, EPDG, Old Mill


Hindu


Sweet Cap 150 fact 25


Sweet Cap 350 fact 30




Be well Brian

[ethicsprof]

thsse are real beauts, Brian!
The Old and the final PSA 6 have two of the clearest pictures of the dove that i've ever seen.
many thanks.
Do you have a Weisnerian theory to add?
all the best, bud
barry