Fro Joy Babe Ruth Cards

[Leon]

Originally Posted by vintagecpa

I would love to hear more information about a plate that was found and additional cards were printed after 1928. I wonder how many other plates exist from other issues.

I would love to hear more too. As far as other printing plates existing I have not heard any stories about them. regards

[steve B]

Originally Posted by Leon

I would love to hear more too. As far as other printing plates existing I have not heard any stories about them. regards

I have print blocks from a few 50's/60's postcards, 2 baseball and 2 hockey. I could easily pull a decent print from them on paper. I don't have anything available to me that could produce enough pressure to do cardboard. But old art/typograph printing presses are out there and aren't too expensive
Black ink would be fairly easy to duplicate, even older ink. The mix is very simple and all the stuff is readily available. Colors are tougher, but possible if you know what went into them. Many ink companies kept that secret. The old paper or cardboard would be dificult but not impossible. Also not all modern papers react to blacklight.

The type of printing leaves traces of what process made the printed item, and most fakes are done with the wrong process. The extreme closeup pics show 2 very different processes.

A comparison with a different item - Comparing a Fro-Joy to a postcard in this case - isn't going to be valid aside from determining what process was used. It could rule something a fake if for instance the process wasn't used during the time period of the item, like a suposed 1860 print made by rotogravure, but it won't tell you much else.

Steve B

[Clutch-Hitter]

Originally Posted by steve B

I have print blocks from a few 50's/60's postcards, 2 baseball and 2 hockey. I could easily pull a decent print from them on paper. I don't have anything available to me that could produce enough pressure to do cardboard. But old art/typograph printing presses are out there and aren't too expensive
Black ink would be fairly easy to duplicate, even older ink. The mix is very simple and all the stuff is readily available. Colors are tougher, but possible if you know what went into them. Many ink companies kept that secret. The old paper or cardboard would be dificult but not impossible. Also not all modern papers react to blacklight.

The type of printing leaves traces of what process made the printed item, and most fakes are done with the wrong process. The extreme closeup pics show 2 very different processes.

A comparison with a different item - Comparing a Fro-Joy to a postcard in this case - isn't going to be valid aside from determining what process was used. It could rule something a fake if for instance the process wasn't used during the time period of the item, like a suposed 1860 print made by rotogravure, but it won't tell you much else.

Steve B

Steve B,

Thanks, very interesting, and that about comparing cards to postcards, etc makes sense.

If there was a Fro Joy printing plate, wouldn't there be more of them to offer? Would a printing plate be for an entire sheet (applies to my previous question, just sheets, or singles and sheets)?

Regarding the little frame/box on the reverse, my SCD catalog has a front/back picture of a Fro Joy with the solid box, no gaps at the corners. I'm getting the impression that I'm not the only one unsure of that box.

Disregard my comment about the facial features on the REA, can't tell for sure because of over exposure in the picture/scan. In my reprint, it looks like Ruth has two black eyes in addition to the shadow of his hat bill. The authentic one just has the hat bill shadow.

Here's the picture from the SCD catalog:

[IMG][/IMG]

[steve B]

The plate or print block could be for any combination of cards or sheets that would fit the press. And the presses come in a variety of sizes. So they could have run the sheets as single sheets, or as multiple sheets on one big piece of paper then cut them apart. It would depend on how many sheets they wanted, and what equipment the printer had.

Current lithography plates can make over a million impressions under the right conditions. Older systems didn't do as well.

As far as why there aren't more, they just didn't print as many. And the people doing the reprinting probably only did one batch.

Places using systems that use print blocks or steel plates will usually save them if they aren't worn out. Offset lithography plates are usually aluminum and get recycled. Old fashioned lithography stones were thick and expensive, and were usually etched flat to be reused.

The sheets as a premium could have been done by a different process than the regular cards since only a few would have been needed, maybe 2-5000? . The layout of the premium sheet wouldn't have been used for the regular cards. There's just too much paper that would be cut off and wasted.

The microscopic image from post 27 looks like it was done by a printing block. You can see impressions of the raised square parts that printed the dots, and the ink that squeezed out around the edges of them. The other image there looks too even to have been done with the same sort of block.

the fakes almost certainly wouldn't have been done with a block because of the expense, but I'd guess that the print run was also around 5000. Later ones like the color ones could have been printed in higher numbers. If they didn't sell for much, a collection of the various fakes couldbe interesting.

Steve B

[steve B]

The plate or print block could be for any combination of cards or sheets that would fit the press. And the presses come in a variety of sizes. So they could have run the sheets as single sheets, or as multiple sheets on one big piece of paper then cut them apart. It would depend on how many sheets they wanted, and what equipment the printer had.

Current lithography plates can make over a million impressions under the right conditions. Older systems didn't do as well.

As far as why there aren't more, they just didn't print as many. And the people doing the reprinting probably only did one batch.

Places using systems that use print blocks or steel plates will usually save them if they aren't worn out. Offset lithography plates are usually aluminum and get recycled. Old fashioned lithography stones were thick and expensive, and were usually etched flat to be reused.

The sheets as a premium could have been done by a different process than the regular cards since only a few would have been needed, maybe 2-5000? . The layout of the premium sheet wouldn't have been used for the regular cards. There's just too much paper that would be cut off and wasted.

The microscopic image from post 27 looks like it was done by a printing block. You can see impressions of the raised square parts that printed the dots, and the ink that squeezed out around the edges of them. The other image there looks too even to have been done with the same sort of block.

the fakes almost certainly wouldn't have been done with a block because of the expense, but I'd guess that the print run was also around 5000. Later ones like the color ones could have been printed in higher numbers. If they didn't sell for much, a collection of the various fakes couldbe interesting.

Steve B

[Clutch-Hitter]

Thanks Steve B. That's interesting.

[fkw]

obviously there are 2 variations of every card, one with the dotted line around card and ones w/o the dotted line.

Maybe some cards were machine cut, and some came in sheets?

Looks like the ones w/o the dotted line have a solid box on back while the dotted line cards have gaps in corners of the box.

This set is more confusing them more I look at it.

[Clutch-Hitter]

Exactly Frank, a complete set of the machine cut singles could be redeemed for a Fro Joy premium and/or an uncut sheet:

[IMG][/IMG]