Al Shaw t206 blue uniform variation...
 

okay maybe not blue but the middle one is bluish compared to most Shaw examples
all three are Piedmont 150's

Attachment 432070

yes, pat.
it does look bluish to me, too.
also seems to be a wee bit out of register.
perhaps steve b. will weigh in.

A higher res scan would show for sure, but it looks like either the lighter blue was printed as a bluish gray, or was all over instead of halftone or only in certain areas.

150's were redone 2-3 times, most differences aren't really noticeable.
Same for 350's

Zoomed to 250%.

If you look at where the one color of the hand goes below the border, you can see the left and right ones are brownish gray, while the middle is bluish gray.

So a different ink color.
I can't see enough detail to see if the layers were different.

Here are some 1200 dpi crops of a few areas Steve.

That's pretty clear.

On the blue one, especially on the first pair and the pair showing the hat you can see how the dark blue is all over instead of just highlights for shading.

One way that can happen is a dry plate, where there isn't enough wetting to repel ink from places you don't want printed.
But the big key with that is that it's usually in either small unprinted areas, like between frame lines on a Piedmont Reverse, or if a larger area it ranges from haphazard and sloppy looking to literally everywhere being printed, including borders. That's not happening here.

I believe the actual art was changed, a nice example of a running change in the 150's.
I think the blue one will be the older one, perhaps a change to use less blue to save ink, or if the uniforms weren't dark, to fix an error.

I noticed this exact same issue with a pair of Dineen's I had. Also a St. Louis player.

Reminds me a little of the Cleveland gray/brown uniform situation. Stovall (Portrait) and Turner have charcoal gray shirts in the 150 series (and on some Piedmont 350s), whereas they have brown shirts in the 350 series (except on some Piedmont 350s). Sorry for the poor scan quality (I no longer own these).

Yeah I've noticed the difference in uniform colors too scot. There are several
print group 1 subjects that vary in uniform color from the 150 series to the
350 series and even with in the 350 series but I haven't seen many like
the Shaw that vary that much with in the 150 series.

Here's an example of a variance in colors on a Birmingham 150 and 350.

Attachment 432382
Attachment 432383

Hi Pat, I would love to see a thorough and incontrovertible explanation for the differences in color with regard to Shaw (St. Louis), Stovall (Portrait), Turner, etc. I am certainly not qualified to provide one. Perhaps Steve is (hi Steve) but I have yet to see an explanation for these differences that is comprehensive or at least one that laypeople can understand. Merry Christmas everyone!

[If someone wants to write an article explaining these color disparities I will be more than happy to post it on my website! :)]

I've seen something very similar. possibly in my own collection but not completely sure. But I did purchase some Pirate back cards. I'm not sure who printed the "Pirate" back cards. But I've seen similar differences, especially when the colors don't line up or are completely omitted. While others almost look like they are finished off with a Sharpie, Unfortunately I have no baseball issues, only Chinese issues. I just knew they didn't look right and bought them. There were between 5 and 10 of them. I have no idea where they are at the moment. Those that know me, know I'm going through a major overhaul of assorting my collection and working on selling 40 years of accumulation. I collect coins, stamps, comic books, and sports cards. My goal is to fit my whole collection on my desk. But I still haven't found the right desk. I had a similar problem with hand & power tools and was gonna sell everything that I couldn't fit in my tool box. I just needed to find the right tool box. Now I just need the right desk :D

http://www.unclenacki.com/toolbox.jpg

It can get a little complicated, because the colors can vary for a few different reasons.

The inks were hand mixed, a situation that persisted for some colors into the early 1980's and maybe beyond. A particular blue would start with a Cyan base and a bit of various other colors would be added to get the "right" shade of blue. By the early 80's that was mostly for solid color areas with a special color like a company logo. It made the then color separations much easier and less expensive.
Different pressmen would mix the same color a bit differently, even if the recipie called for exact weights. Basically nobody took the time to measure the smaller weights. If it was 1ounce Cyan, half ounce white and a few grams of Yellow, the yellow translated to a "drop" which could be dime size, or quarter size. And had a noticeable effect on the actual color.

Registration issues can change the perceived color, although that's unusual on T206s.
Todays cards are almost entirely computer generated halftones, and colors can vary with registration. I had one set where I had kept doubles of not only a blue banner, but a purplish banner and a greenish blue banner.
Under the 40X magnifier, they were identical except for the registration. The purple ones had red slightly off making the blue appear reddish enough to seem purple. The greenish blue had yellow slightly out of register.
saved a bunch of space by moving most of them to the extras box...

This stuff happens for Stamps too, and some of the articles are very technical. There's a group now that's doing x-ray diffraction to figure the composition of the inks so they can tell colors apart more reliably. Biggest revelation to date is that a reddish brown ink that was always assumed to be rust in a semi-hardening medium like linseed oil was found to contain no Iron whatsoever!

Based on a Camnitz that Scott sold I think I figured ot what's going on with this Shaw. Camnitz's uniform is blue where it's missing the buff layer because of the shift so I think the Shaw is missing the buff layer.

Attachment 555148

Attachment 555094

It's interesting to revisit some of these.

I'm not convinced it's missing buff, although it can be hard to tell which color is which sometimes when they're overlaid like they should be.

On the Shaw, especially in the high res scans you can see both the dark blue layer and the lighter blue layer. On the dark one that lighter blue layer is nearly as dark as the dark blue layer used for the shading. Taking a fesh look at it, I think it may be a matter of the light blue being printed darker in error.

On Camnitz, blue area where buff isn't is the lighter blue.

The faces on both Shaws appear normal, so I think another point against a missing color.

Still more interesting, the is actually a difference in one of the the blue layers down by the glove. On the blue overlaying to make green goes all the way under the glove, and on the lighter one it stops short.

I don't know for sure if that's what it is but after seeing the Camnitz it's what makes the most sense to me. The Buff shift I'm pretty sure is what caused
the bluish color on his uniform it mirrors the amount of the buff shift.
Attachment 555199

If it was a design change as you originally thought it might be there would be more of them in the 150 series including other subjects like Camnitz not just Shaw.

As for the Color on his face it does look different than the others to me and the area around his ear and cheek look different to me too.
Attachment 555200

The flesh color is made from more than one color you can see that on the Fielder Jones I posted a couple of weeks ago.
It looks different where the buff is missing on his hand but it still has somewhat of a fleshy look to it.
Attachment 555201

It is the shift on the Camnitz for sure.

The others are great examples of how the colors being overlaid and semi translucent both makes the color seen and makes it difficult to spot which layer is which.