[brianp-beme]

I have 16 different cards that have varying degrees of shading. I decided to concentrate my investigation on this by strictly looking at the parallel border lines that surround the card. I have four that are near fully shaded, five that are partly shaded, and seven that are just shaded in spots.

I think the key is that there are varying degrees of shading that are out there. It was mentioned that the only one of the cards that Robert showed in a previous post was the shaded variation...however those other two cards have areas in the border where there is some shading.

I think this spotty nature in the amount of shading dovetails nicely with the idea mentioned earlier about gunk not being cleaned out from the plates...Iggy the hunchback was always getting delayed with sweeping the larvae and dead insects from the printroom floor and neglected to clean off the plates, so runs of cards became progressively 'shaded'. So it is my belief that it is just a lack of quality control, just like cards that are seen with bad registration.

Just to throw out the cards with this 'issue' that I have:

Lots of border shading

Phelps
Overall
Miller
Fromme

Cards with more than half border shading

Marquard
Groom
Gray
Demmitt
Camnitz

Cards with just 'spot' of border shading

G.Davis
Davis
Leach
Keeler Pink
Brown
Bransfield Pink
Willis



Brian