The Dessau cards are probably actually missing red. But not by accident. There's a group of 350's that I've only very marginally studied where there's a deliberate change to the bright red. Dygert is the most obvious, he either looks like he's got lipstick or he doesn't.
These are a mixed group, and I need to do better scans. The top two are faded, from a big group that was on Ebay that had 40 years or so of light exposure.
The Huggins is one from another group that looks really washed out, I haven't seen many, and they're certainly odd.
The Beck is missing pink, and gray.
A second missing color is somewhat typical for cards that are missing a color and don't show evidence of soaking or being pinned up somewhere.
That being said, I actually tried to fade or create an offset transfer from a soaked card a few years ago, and lets just say that plain water plus a lot of pressure - clamped between wood blocks in a vise for a week or so did neither.
|