There's basically two sorts of wet sheet transfers that happen at the factory. Each has a proper technical term I'll use below with an explanation of how they happen.
The least common are Cylinder impressions or cylinder offsets. Those are the ones with a complete and detailed image on the wrong side of the card and the image is reversed. They happen when a sheet doesn't feed and the ink gets printed to the impression cylinder. Then the next sheet comes through and that ink on the impression cylinder gets transferred to what is the back side of the sheet (Back here being the side not being printed)
The more common ones are offset transfers. They happen from accidents or improper handling of the stack of printed sheets. Like if the new guy leans on the stack of printed sheets before it's dry-------The boss wasn't happy with me that day, but I "only" wrecked about 75 sheets. Offset transfers can be faint or fairly detailed depending on the ink, how much it's dried and how much pressure gets applied. They're typically faint, but when you look closely they're still nice clean prints. Faint ones are pretty common on backs printed in black, especially on Tolstoi.
Since it's normal to be printing one back at a time, and the press stacks the sheets neatly, any wst of a different back or different subject should be suspect. The same for an upside down wst. They're not impossible, but are really unlikely to have survived since they would have to be from sheets -usually spoiled sheets but sometimes new but damaged stock- placed on the pallet to protect the good sheets.
The ones that are blurry are also nearly 100% likely to be from something that happened after the factory. There's always a way for something to happen, but the less normal the wst (or any other misprint) The less likely it would have happened.
The ones in the auctions have the same detail as a cylinder transfer, but aren't complete. And some are upside down. Combined with the paperloss on the back, and the occasional bits of paper stuck to the fronts near or on the supposed wst, they're sure to be very thin remnants of other cards that were once stuck together.
Steve Birmingham
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