Posted By:
Scott ForrestHere is some information from a VCBC article I wrote two years ago:
"Another common “color variation” is the red-background card that has an orange background instead of red. Examples include a Tinker portrait and Willett batting, but I have seen many others as well. The Tinker portrait gives a clue as to what happened: both “red” and “orange” cards contain pink in the facial features, but the red portrait also has red lips. In addition, the red portrait has some background ink missing, revealing…orange! So, obviously a layer of red ink was left off of the orange portrait. Perhaps the orange was used beneath the red to add richness to the background. It worked - the two-toned red background cards are among the most visually appealing in the set. So these cards too, are actually just missing colors.
The Vic Willis portrait also exists with various purple to red background colors. I have three and they each look different. Because the background contains combinations of red, purple, pink and blue inks, it’s not surprising that different color variations could result, just because the colors are so different and the amount of any particular one could easily vary from one printing to the next."