T206 Orange Background Portraits

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Posted By: warshawlaw 

Just picked up my first of these. Very odd looking; sort of gives the player an Addams' Family quality (looks dead). Any ideas on what these are worth vs. the normal red bg?

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Posted By: fkw

Please post a picture of yours. If it is a true Orange color (like the one below), and not a redish orange color like many so called "Orange" Cobbs, it should bring at least 3-5X book in my opinion. Frank

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Posted By: warshawlaw

anyone want to email me and I will send them the image to post.

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Posted By: petecld

Adam's card:

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Posted By: andy becker

i'm a little confused, i've seen the orange cobb portrait...but i've always thought it was a printing defect (i still think that). is the orange cobb a variation of the red or is it a fifth version of t206 cobb?
btw, the orange cobb posted is beautiful!!!!

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Posted By: warshawlaw

my card has a washed out face compared to the regular red background card. My guess is that as the red ink ran out, the cards got more and more orange-yellow and the faces got more and more ashen.

Mine is a Sovreign 35 back, BTW. Wish it was a Cobb front...

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Posted By: warshawlaw

"Sovereign 350" back

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Posted By: JimB

I have an orange background Cobb portrait. I will scan a photo in tomorrow.
Jim

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Posted By: JimB

Here is an image of my Orange variation Cobb.

Woops. I thought I had successfully loaded the image. I will try again.
Jim

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Posted By: JimB

I guess I did successfully load the image!
Jim

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Posted By: Julie

(but it isn't really TOO pale, is it?), I guess it's just a lighter shade. But it IS beautiful! The two Cobbs presented here are two quite distinct colors--does someone think that one of them qualifies as an "orange Cobb" and the other one doesn't?

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Posted By: warshawlaw

prove that the printing variation is really a printing error, not a true (i.e., intentional) variation. As the red runs out, the card backgrounds gradually fade to yellow and the skin tones jaundice. This is subtle, because red is a much stronger primary color than yellow and chews up the yellow far "deeper" into the run than would be the case otherwise (add a dab of red paint to yellow and check the result then add a similar dab of yellow to red; a little red gives you a very distinct pale orange but a little yellow barely fades the red). My guess is that at some point in the print run the pressman decided that the red had run down too much and scrapped those cards before refilling the ink but allowed the remainder to go into the population.

I agree that they represent a small slice of the total number of cards of the players and are therefore deserving of a premium. How much of a premium I guess would depend on how close to the end of the run the card was, on the theory that the further into the print run it was, the wider the gulf between the colors.

I wonder if a similar variation situation exists with any other colors?

fkw's is the more "orange" of the two as far as I can see.

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Posted By: Art M.

Seems like the "orange" instead of "red" is one of the more common T206 color errors.
Anybody have any color theories on this card of mine?

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Posted By: HalleyGator

It looks like your card didn't get any YELLOW ink.

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Posted By: fkw

This Joe Kelly card has a brown background, but there is some red at bottom. Frank

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Posted By: warshawlaw

anyone else have more?

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Posted By: Brian Weisner

Here's a nice "orange" Portrait of Charley Carr:

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Posted By: Innocent bystander

Let me see - print errors or deviations are now variations that people would like to see given a premium on price. Very interesting. Lets apply this to a few different card issues -

Would that mean that a pink Old Judge of the same player and pose is worth more than a more sepia toned card?

An orange T206 is worth more than a red T206 of the same player and pose?

What about the Red/Pink E90-1 cards of Keeler?

I can understand differences in cards such as the Washington or Chicago T206 card of Brown (Browne) because there is a distinct difference.

I suppose you could make a case for the ghost image T206 cards because it wasn't every day that someone got careless in the print process and the lack of quality control let these cards out the door. I suppose you could make the arguement that these are rare because there aren't many out there, but then where do you draw the line?

Are there going to be debates over the definition of the color orange because one is a brighter orange than another? Or will people say it's closer to red than orange and now the card is worth less than the red because it's not a true brilliant red and it's really not orange.

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Posted By: warshawlaw

I believe that T-card print variation and miscut collecting has become a significant source of interest to many collectors looking to expand on their T-card collections. The fact that these cards command a premium is the result of recognition that they are rare, unique and interesting, and increased collecting interest as a result. I don't see what the problem is with that...

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Posted By: hankron

I think some people collect misprints as they artifacts about how the cards were made.

As far as financial valuation goes, a common mistake for collectors is to assume that if one ghost has a big premium then all has a big premium. You judge the quality of the errors one at a time. While some printing errors are psychedelic, others are an ugly 5 o'clock shadow.

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Posted By: warshawlaw

The worse the cut, the more interesting the T card is. I have an Ed Walsh so badly miscut that his hand reaches around the card and comes out the other side. Neat stuff.

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Posted By: R. Ellingsen

Anybody hear anything new on the orange background Cobb? I am the owner of the Orange Cobb in the second post. I purchased it well over a decade ago from a older gentleman who played a few games in the majors but mostly played minor league ball as a catcher with St. Louis back in the very early 40's.

I always wondered what caused the card to be orange like that. Over the years I have heard so many different opinions on the card I don't know what to think. Everything from it's defective and worth less then a normal card to there being a considerable premium for it. I will post a better scan of the card below. The card has the red and yellow ink clearly off register with the red very high (over the top border) and the yellow offset down towards the shoulders. I can understand the red ink running low explaination. My question is did they actually cover the whole backgroud with yellow on a normal red back Cobb? I don't remember ever seeing yellow across the whole background in any of the red back Cobbs I have seen like shown in the picture. It would seem that if you mixed yellow with red, you would always come up with orange.<br /> It also appears that it might have a ink fingerprint on the forehead

I figure it's at least worth what a red back version is worth, maybe more. It appears that they were given a premium in the auction below.

(March 16-17, 2001) Robert Edward Auctions
#158, T206 Ty Cobb Orange Background Variation $2,415 (Both cards are Trimmed)

Anybody else have any idea's on it?

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Posted By: warshawlaw

The trick is finding him/her. A common worth $20-$25 will fetch five times that with a really striking orange tone, like the Cobb shown. But will the Cobb pull $5,000+? You'd have to auction it to find out. Thanks for sharing it, though--great card.

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Posted By: robert a

this one's pink/orange. you can see the printing change at the top. I don't think there should be any premium placed on "orange backgrounds."
just my opinion.
robert a.

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Posted By: warshawlaw

I understand the technical issues, but that card is way more desirable than a 10 implies.

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Posted By: robert a

I guess the cobb portrait above is not your usual "poor" considering the sovereign back is clean too, but the flaking on the front is I guess why the grade what issued as such?
robert a

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Posted By: R. Ellingsen

What's really odd is I have seen a few scans of what where called orange backgrounds in the past but none of them had the vivid yellow orange mottled appearance of the one I have. Most had a more solid look to the color and were more red orange then a bright yellow orange.
I am not looking to sell it but was just curious for my own information. I probably would never sell because I am not so sure I could ever replace it with a similar copy in the future if I ever wanted another. If it was a normal red background I would sell it in a minute. They are easy to replace with even a much higher grade if desired. It will probably just sit in my safe deposit box forever.

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Posted By: JimB

Here is a shot of my orange Cobb. I am having fun because I just figured out how to load images on here.
JimB

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Posted By: R. Ellingsen

Thanks for posting the scan of your card JimB! That is the first one I seen that was very similar to mine. It has the many of the same features including being shifted to the left, the colors being off register with the red high and the yellow low, right uniform edge the same, etc. They look like they were produced at close to the same time. Nice condition on it too! What back does it have? Mine has a Old Mill Factory 25 2d District.

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Posted By: R. Ellingsen

Edit: Double post, web site showed a error message after I clicked submit the first time.

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Posted By: JimB

It is interesting to compare these. Mine seems to be missing some ink under Cobb's right eye that yours is not, though your color is a bit lighter. The back of mine is Sweet Cap 350, Factory 30, 24th Dist.
JimB