T206 Stovall and Turner: Charcoal Gray v. Brown Shirt

[sreader3]

T206 color variations seems to be a hot board topic at the moment.

Here is my contribution.

Two Cleveland Naps 150/350 subjects, Stovall (Portrait) and Turner, are available with either a charcoal gray shirt or a brown shirt. The brown shirt version is, I believe, the result of the blue ink pass having not been added on top of the brown ink layer to create the charcoal gray appearance. The difference in shirt color can be fairly subtle--but there is a difference.

This would perhaps be only nominally interesting if the charcoal gray and brown shirt versions were distributed in similar numbers with all backs, or if there were only one or two stray copies of the brown shirt version floating around.

But there is method to the madness.

Of the hundreds of copies I have studied, all copies of Stovall and Turner with the 150 obverse have the charcoal gray shirt. A slight majority of copies with the Piedmont 350 and Sweet Caporal 350 back are also of the charcoal gray ilk.

That reduces the ranks of the “brown shirted” Stovalls and Turners to a small but substantial minority of Piedmont and Sweet Cap 350 copies, plus ALL Sovereign 350 copies. (I cannot speak definitively yet to EPDG or Old Mill).

Was the transition from a charcoal gray shirt to a brown one made consciously by ALC? It seems unlikely. But I have not seen ANY copies of the other Cleveland 150/350 portraits [e.g. Joss (Portrait), Lajoie (Portrait)] who sport brown shirts. Moreover, the 350-only Naps portraits (e.g. Perring) seem to have a lighter gray shirt (not brown).

If we assume that the ALC just “ran out” of blue ink near the end of the 150/350 print run, the distribution of Stovalls and Turners with brown shirts would be consistent with Sovereign 350 being printed last, overlapping with tail-end production of Piedmont 350 and Sweet Cap 350. But why then are there no Joss or Lajoie Piedmont 350, Sweet Cap 350 or Sovereign 350 portraits with brown shirts (at least that I have seen)?

I would welcome a show-and-tell of board members' Stovalls and Turners mentioning what back is on the reverse.

Below are my copies of Stovall (Brown), Stovall (Gray) and Turner (Brown). I don't have a copy of Turner (Gray). My Stovall (Gray) is perhaps not the best example--there are a lot of copies out there exhibiting a much darker gray shirt.

Scot