Is this a wet sheet transfer?

[mrdbrooks77]

I have searched but am still confused on what makes it a wet sheet transfer vs an overprint? And am I using the terms correct? The back is a sweet cap 350. The sweet cap on the front seems printed first as it disappears behind the white but I really don't know.

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[nat]

I'm sure some of our experts will chime in here, but it sure looks like a wet-sheet transfer to me. That's what happens when you have a sheet of cardstock placed against a newly printed sheet that isn't dry yet. The 'C' from the Sweet Caporal is backwards, which is, I think, what you'd expect with wet sheet transfer.

[Sean]

By "overprint" I think that you are referring to a cylinder transfer, in which the previous image is not cleared from the cylinder, and ends up being printed, along with the intended image in some cases. Cylinder transfers are much darker than WSTs, as the image is actually printed, rather than having a bit of the color wear off and transfer. Here are a couple cylinder transfers:


scan0003.jpg

scan0004.jpg

scan0036.jpg

[sb1]

The red which is the most unstable of all colors, can also bleed just a bit when the cards are stacked in a damp or humid environment and leave a very faint trace of the red Sweet cap back on the fronts of the cards as well. Hard to say whether this is what caused yours or just a wet freshly printed back.

[mrdbrooks77]

Thanks for the replies. I guess I was wondering if it done before or after the front was printed or if we can even tell?

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[steve B]

Originally Posted by sb1

The red which is the most unstable of all colors, can also bleed just a bit when the cards are stacked in a damp or humid environment and leave a very faint trace of the red Sweet cap back on the fronts of the cards as well. Hard to say whether this is what caused yours or just a wet freshly printed back.

This is actually mostly false.

While it may be possible to chemically cause a transfer, and some ink formulations Might transfer without any thing but pressure (Something I've never seen on a card but have seen on another item)
It's not possible with water or humidity.

For one thing the inks were oil based. That's a primary feature of how lithography works.

A few years ago I tried to force an offset transfer (The more proper name for a wet sheet transfer) I took a worn common, soaked it and the paper, and clamped it between boards in a vise for a couple days.
No transfer of any ink, although it did pick up an impression of the woodgrain.

[steve B]

The Hartsel is a puzzling card.

Usually a transfer of any sort is faint but complete. Unless it's from something putting localized pressure on the stack of sheets. Since the white areas are just the surfaced side of the cardstock showing through, it should be more obvious there. But there it's entirely missing.

All I can think of is that it was too dry to transfer, but the green still hadn't dried fully and was able to soften it.
I think that's possible, but a huge stretch into improbable.

I'll have to think a bit to come up with something better.

[TobaccoKing4]

Similar to the card you posted above, I recently saw a T206 Mordecai Brown with a Polar Bear back that had part of a Polar Bear back on the front as well. The right side of the outer border going down to the calligraphy design was on the front but that was it, nothing more. I wasn't sure if it was an actual WST so I passed on the card.

[Pat R]

Originally Posted by steve B

This is actually mostly false.

While it may be possible to chemically cause a transfer, and some ink formulations Might transfer without any thing but pressure (Something I've never seen on a card but have seen on another item)
It's not possible with water or humidity.

For one thing the inks were oil based. That's a primary feature of how lithography works.

A few years ago I tried to force an offset transfer (The more proper name for a wet sheet transfer) I took a worn common, soaked it and the paper, and clamped it between boards in a vise for a couple days.
No transfer of any ink, although it did pick up an impression of the woodgrain.

Steve,
On more than one occasion we've seen a group of cards listed individually by the same seller where most of them have transfers on the front
also some of them have paper stuck on the front and some have paper loss on the back. I remember on at least one occasion it was a
seller/dealer that sells a lot of T206's on ebay. My thought was that they had been stored in a box or something that had got wet at some
point and dried out over a period of time and that was how the transfers occurred.

If what you say is true the only explanation I can think of is that they
were soaked in a chemical to separate them.

[sb1]

I too have seen this on more than one occassion of sorting thru original groups, so that is what I based my view of some of these transfers.

But I guess I could be wrong, perhaps they were that way from the printer and just happened to be all from the same sheet, which may have been slightly wet when stacked, and happened to remain together over time.

[steve B]

Well, you've given me some stuff to consider, and I'll have to back off the "that can't cause a transfer" position. Sometimes we learn something new from what we've had right there all along.

A number of things make offset transfers complicated.

One of those things is that the inks of the time were often proprietary trade secrets. Most were a pigment in a carrier, which could be petroleum based oil or some other oil like linseed oil, or a combination. Usually there was something added as a hardener.

1909-11 was right during a period where a lot was changing. Lithography was moving from stones to metal plates, inks were moving from pigments to dyes. And those that were dyes like red, were moving from natural to some new synthetics.

Some of those carriers dry/harden on their own, some only mostly dry.

It's possible that there are some inks that were made with a different carrier, because a different dye or pigment was used. I haven't done any experiments with cards in better condition, or with ones from different series. It's possible the back on the tested card picked up some dust making it less prone to transfer. "
Anyone with deeper pockets and no qualms about wrecking a nicer common care to repeat the test?

Thinking about whether I had a card that might have been exposed to the right sort of damage, I remembered one that probably came from a major early dealer who'd had a fire.
I don't look at the cards I've had for decades closely enough....
That one has obvious fire damage and a transfer, and it's got an EPGD back, which I don't recall seeing many transfers on. It doesn't show any obvious water damage, which is a bit surprising. Maybe it just didn't get all that wet.



So I would say it's also proven that heat plus pressure plus maybe water can also create a transfer, while merely water and pressure probably won't. Chemicals, especially solvents can probably also cause a transfer.

That may vary by color and brand, and maybe series, although I wouldn't expect it to differ by anything other than color. Whatever was done for the black ink, it seems more prone to offset transfers.

[Pat R]

I haven't been able to locate any of the groups of cards that were sold
by the same sellers yet Steve but this is similar to what most of them
looked like.

Lord.jpg

[steve B]

Now that's interesting.

One of the bright reds used at the time, was cochineal, which is water soluble.

I'm thinking the water plus some heat or chemical, or very long immersion allows the cochineal dye to be partly dissolved and once dissolved it migrates.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cochineal

Madder/Alizarin is only slightly water soluble.

The card that left parts of its front and maybe that red impression/stain was probably Carrigan (Almost certainly since part of "Boston" is visible and Carrigan was the only Red Sox player with a red background)

[Bill77]

My Tolstoi Needham has a similar transfer on the front. I have also seen a few other Tolstoi's thatare similar to mine as well.

[Jantz]

mrdbrooks77

Your Hartsel is a wet sheet transfer (not an overprint) that occurred in-factory or during production.

I place ink transfers into two separate categories. Ones that occurred in-factory during production while the cards were still in sheet form and the second category where something else has happened to cause the cards to bleed onto one another when the cards are individually cut, which would be after-factory.

So far in this thread this is what I see.

In-factory wet sheet transfer - Hartsel & Needham

After-factory ink transfer - Lord & Brashear

Some T206s display a wet sheet transfer on almost every example. McGraw (Glove on Hip) Sweet Caporal 350-460-Factory 42 (no overprint) is one such card. Notice the red vertical lines in the green (grass) on each McGraw card.

Here are a few examples that I found within 5 minutes on Ebay.

Jantz