Finally found an e98 printing variation - Black and White e98s.....

[sb1]

Appear to be hand cut printers scrap. Possible the first color pass was in error(probably the Orange) and they pulled the sheet and one of the employees took it home and cut them up for his kids.

[Tim Kindler]

These E98s do bring up an interesting debate. Fortunately, I was able to pick up a few of the ones that I needed from the seller, but passed on these because I thought they were just faded (The Chase to me really rings out faded). But maybe I'm wrong and you may have found yourself quite a unique find. If you are correct in that they just missed the printing process or some other circumstance then you have some great cards on your hands! I hope that they are not because getting one of each card in the four different colors is proving to be an extreme challenge in itself and if I have to get black and white ones now I'll never get there Anyway, neat cards to look at and debate about. I guess I'm basing my arguement on the Chase and the Mack which to me look like they have color to them but are just faded. But adding to your side of the arguement is that EVERY Mcgraw with a GREEN Background, the pink skin tone color IS MISSING. At least every McGraw with a green background that I've ever seen is missing the pink color ON HIS FACE, so you may be right about your theory. Either way, nice pick up on your E98s! Any E98 is a Great card!

[shammus]

Hey Tim -

HAHA....I don't think that printing anomalies should add to the e98 checklist. Errors don't count, you'll still have to get the 4 background colors, however I believe that only INTENDED variations get added to the checklist. Not printing goofs and other error cards.

I agree, the Chase is seemingly pinkish in color but most of the others are completely without any sort of color. A couple reasons why I don't think these are faded...

- the photo quality is similar to e97 B&Ws. There is a lot of detail with these and the photos still look reasonably sharp. Faded cards are blurry and well....faded and much lighter than these are. If hypothetically speaking, the cards were say, left out in the sun and faded to the point where they lost all their color, wouldn't it be safe to say that they wouldn't still be as dark as these cards are?

- the captions are every bit as dark as e98s with color. If the cards had faded out, these would be lighter too.

- faded cards would still have some color...just lighter to a degree. With these cards, everything from the background, to the color on the face is a dull slate grey. Cards that are faded, wouldn't just simply turn grey in color.

I believe I used to own that green McGraw you showed. Kind of interesting that those seemingly missed the "flesh-colored" color pass...heh

Scott's argument is a feasible one I think. It seems that these cards might have been some sort of a "test run" that either saw no color passes or maybe just one, which would explain the Chase. The cards were then pulled and thrown in the discard pile where they were rescued, perhaps, and taken home.

[rdixon1208]

They don't look like faded cards to me. Very cool.

[Leon]

I am in the missing-a-color-pass camp. That and the fact they could have been some kind of testing of the inks, and then they didn't like the outcome so quit producing them theory, seems very plausible. I saw them on ebay and meant to go after one for my type set but spaced it. I agree with Brian on his points for them not to be faded. Neat cards.....and drats

[tbob]

I agree with Tim, I hope they are not faded but I'm not sold on their being black and whites. I also passed on the cards because I didn't think they were black and whites.
Brian- I think the Cobb you are referring to was a black and white E93. Nice cards and interesting, congrats on the pickups.
I have a black and white M116 Mitchell which is a unique card so I know anomalies do exist. There is also a gray background E94 (yours?) in the hobby and of course the one of a kind orange background E94s which exist with an orange background for each player but only one known to exist for each player. I have 5 of those E94s and have never found out he reason for the orange backs. There was a theory that one sheet of E94s were printed by mistake with the orange ink used for E98s but that, in my mind, has been dismissed because even though most of the orange backgrounds came from a stash once owned by Brian Daniels in California, one of the cards came from Lionel Carter's collection and was owned by him for many years.

[shammus]

Thanks for the comments so far guys...I know I'll definitely enjoy this discussion as it unfolds

Bob - Yep, still have my "silverback" e94 (pictured below). There were other colors on that card however, such as brown on the hat and "flesh tones" on the face. The only color missing was the background itself. It seems that that card just simply missed the red color pass, blue color pass or whatever color that card was supposed to be. I always kind of thought all those orange e94s were basically the same sort of printing goof.

I will say that I'm 100% certain the e98s are not faded for the reasons I outlined above. These are just too dark and too detailed to be "faded".

I do not think they are true black and whites as they weren't intended to be this way although on some of the cards, that was indeed the end result. Like some of the others are saying, I think these are the result of a faulty print run, a "test run" or printer's scrap if you will. I think that what happened is there was a sheet of cards (maybe more than one even) that were going through for their color runs. After the first pass, someone noticed that the color didn't show up clearly (like on the Chase) or not at all (several of the others) and that the cards were at that point scrapped.

e94Doolan.jpg