T206 Buyers Beware

[iggyman]

Perhaps I'm grasping at straws but for the better part of 30 minutes, I have been searching for T206 Mathewson portrait cards online. I've looked at high grade examples, low grade beaters, Sovereign backs, Piedmont backs, Sweet Caporal backs, one Hindu back, trimmed ones, VCP ones, major auctions ones, and a few really ugly ones. Yet, for the life of me I cannot find one example where the "S" on his name aligns underneath the lower button.

If possible, can Net54ers who have a T206 Mathewson portrait do me a favor and check to see if you have one with the name and button aligned in this manner:

mathtest2.JPG

Tim, no disrespect but I believe your analysis concerning the shifting to the left of the bottom text is incorrect. First of all, after looking at my T206 Mathewson portrait under a loupe, I'm convinced that the "N." and "Y." on his uniform are the same brown color as the bottom text. Thus, if one shifts the other should shift as well. If we find a real one that has shifted it would hopefully prove this theory. Secondly, you mentioned the brown by Mathewson head in the "Tolstoi" backed example is slightly off. That might be true, but the one in question is the SOVEREIGN Mathewson. That is the one that has shifted to the left.

Lovely Day...

Originally Posted by Abravefan11

Iggy - Not a silly observation but I think I can explain it. Look just above Matty's head on the Tolstoi backed example and you will see the brown color pass is off slightly. This would account for the caption also being shifted to the left.

[Runscott]

Iggy - Tim's correct about this. I've seen plenty of examples where I had two identical cards, but the name at the bottom was aligned differently (to the left or right). It's true that there will be a 'normal' alignment, but finding deviations isn't a big deal.

[atx840]

Aligned to the left image border you can see the PB backed (2nd from the top) Hofman is shifted to the left.

[alanu]

After watching a paper restorer restore a thrashed poster on tv, I can believe almost anything can be done with these cards, given to the right person.

[tedzan]

The brown ink captions of the white-bordered T-cards must of been a separate stage in the printing process (1909-1912). In the post 1912 T-card era,
American Litho. switched to printing the captions with blue ink.

My point here is that you cannot depend on a precise alignment of the caption lettering with respect to the image to indicate that a card is a "repro" (or not).

And, then there are those T206's without a caption....such as my no-caption T206 Ryan.





TED Z

[Abravefan11]

Originally Posted by tedzan

The brown ink captions of the white-bordered T-cards must of been a separate stage in the printing process (1909-1912).

TED Z

Evidence points to the captions for the T206's being printed during the same brown color pass as the image. If the brown color pass is off registration in the image, the caption is off as well.

[z28jd]

I have Carrigan's where you can watch the name move, regular alignment, followed by the big letters just barely touching the board to all the letters slightly into the border. You can see the brown in his glove, especially where it meets the picture of the buttocks(I assume its the back of his hand), moves up as the name moves up.

Edited to add that these are all Polar Bear backs, just an interesting ICYDK(FYI that means in case you didn't know)

[iggyman]

Originally Posted by tedzan

My point here is that you cannot depend on a precise alignment of the caption lettering with respect to the image to indicate that a card is a "repro" (or not).

Ted, I'm not arguing that the brown lettering does not shift in one direction or the other. What I'm trying to say (which others have said far better then me), is that if the brown lettering on the bottom shifts, then anything else with brown lettering in the image should also shift.

The Sovereign Mathewson does not seem to follow this rule.

Lovely Day...

[tedzan]

Originally Posted by iggyman

Ted, I'm not arguing that the brown lettering does not shift in one direction or the other. What I'm trying to say (which others have said far better then me), is that if the brown lettering on the bottom shifts, then anything else with brown lettering in the image should also shift.

The Sovereign Mathewson does not seem to follow this rule.

Lovely Day...

Iggy

I would venture to say that all 524 images of the T206 set have Brown ink on them. Yet, like my Ryan card, some were printed without their Brown caption.

Tim's illustration, not withstanding, there must of have been situations where the printing of the image and the printing of the caption were separate stages.
Otherwise, how would "No-Caption" T206's exist ?

I'm not certain, though, that this answers you question ?


TED Z

[Abravefan11]

Originally Posted by iggyman

Tim, no disrespect but I believe your analysis concerning the shifting to the left of the bottom text is incorrect.

Iggy - Never any disrespect and thank you for continuing to look at it. If the caption was printed with the brown color pass it should be off like the rest of the brown in the image. But after looking at it more closely you're right and I believe the captions on the two bad cards are fake and not part of subject image that was used.

[Runscott]

Originally Posted by Abravefan11

Iggy - Never any disrespect and thank you for continuing to look at it. If the caption was printed with the brown color pass it should be off like the rest of the brown in the image. But after looking at it more closely you're right and I believe the captions on the two bad cards are fake and not part of subject image that was used.

What are your thoughts on how the front was reconstructed? I can see them scraping off the original image and adding a new one, as described in my previous post, but I have a hard time seeing how anyone could scrape off the original caption and print a new one, AND get it past the graders.

Perhaps I give the graders too much credit.

Thoughts?

[tedzan]

Originally Posted by Runscott

What are your thoughts on how the front was reconstructed? I can see them scraping off the original image and adding a new one, as described in my previous post, but I have a hard time seeing how anyone could scrape off the original caption and print a new one, AND get it past the graders.

Perhaps I give the graders too much credit.

Thoughts?

Check-out the following scans....evident in the lower part of the Donlin card is the start of image disintegration (that is typical of white-bordered cards that have been
affected by adverse conditions).

The Piedmont 350 card (center) was a T206 Peaches Graham. It had extensive image disintegration. I carefully scraped the ink flakes off it, resulting in a "Blank Front"
T206 (seen in the right scan).

This is the start of the re-fronted process of a T206. Given the technology that exists nowadays, the entire front image of a T206 is faithfully reproduced to the extent that it will fool the Grader. A professional paper restorer will then laminate this repro front onto a real "frontless" T206. The paper restorer will repeat this process until he
creates a "fake" T206 that it is virtually un-discernable from a real one.







TED Z

[Runscott]

Originally Posted by tedzan

Check-out the following scans....evident in the lower part of the Donlin card is the start of image disintegration (that is typical of white-bordered cards that have been
affected by adverse conditions).

The Piedmont 350 card (center) was a T206 Peaches Graham. It had extensive image disintegration. I carefully scraped the ink flakes off it, resulting in a "Blank Front"
T206 (seen in the right scan).

This is the start of the re-fronted process of a T206. Given the technology that exists nowadays, the entire front image of a T206 is faithfully reproduced to the extent that it will fool the Grader. A professional paper restorer will then laminate this repro front onto a real "frontless" T206. The paper restorer will repeat this process until he
creates a "fake" T206 that it is virtually un-discernable from a real one.

TED Z

Ted, Tim stated that he thinks the Matty caption was added by the forger. Adding a caption that could get past a grading company would require:

1. re-creating the white background over the cardboard
2. stamping the caption with the same font used in real T206's
3. stamping the caption with the same similar ink used in real T206's
4. stamping the caption using the same process used in real T206's

I don't see how the above could be done, which is why I've asked for Tim's thoughts. Not saying it CAN'T be done, just wondering how.

[Sterling Sports Auctions]

Lee

[steve B]

Here's a Barry with nearly no caption. A decent sized lower border, and the caption just barely visible at the lower edge. The brown is shifted down on this one.


But the same seller had a Schmidt that had a full lower border and no caption. I was sure I'd saved the scan, but haven't found it yet.

re-creating the white background isn't necessary if the original front is simply erased.

Using the same font isn't hard.

using the same ink isn't needed, merely one close to the same color

Using the same method also isn't all that hard. And not entirely required.

duplicating a small section of text on one color is fairly simple. Duplicating the entire image would be a challenge, but may be possible.

As a related question, maybe one that should get its own thread- Where are the wrongbacks? Nearly every other sort of T206 scrap or error has turned up, I would think that at some point a leftover sheet of say 150 series would have been used as makeready sheets or marker sheets for a later series or for a brand that didn't use that image. So there should be at least a handful of 150 only cards with 350 or even 460 backs. (Not saying that these are wrongbacks just that some should exist somewhere. And I'd be more comfortable seeing a common.)

Steve B

[Runscott]

Originally Posted by steve B

re-creating the white background isn't necessary if the original front is simply erased.

Using the same font isn't hard.

using the same ink isn't needed, merely one close to the same color

Using the same method also isn't all that hard. And not entirely required.

duplicating a small section of text on one color is fairly simple. Duplicating the entire image would be a challenge, but may be possible.


Steve B

Steve, you're saying it's all easy, but not saying answering 'how'. If the font can be 'simply erased', such that it could FOOL THE GRADER, we'd have so many error cards encapsulated that they wouldn't be worth anything.

Same thing is true if it's really that easy to find ink that's close to the same color and a similar font and method - can you imagine how many Slow Joe Doyles we'd have with Nat'l?

I'm still not seeing this.