E91 Set B Plank Variation?

[nolemmings]

That seems to be good evidence of a print variation. You should put the card under a strong loupe and/or otherwise enlarge it. This could reveal whether there is pressure or indentation from an ink pen or, conversely, if the black is actually part of the dot pattern.

[Wayward99]

Originally Posted by GasHouseGang

That is weird. I've attached a picture of the card offered by Love Of The Game. The marking seems exactly the same with the same placement. Maybe it was a print variation as you suggested.

Originally Posted by nolemmings

That seems to be good evidence of a print variation. You should put the card under a strong loupe and/or otherwise enlarge it. This could reveal whether there is pressure or indentation from an ink pen or, conversely, if the black is actually part of the dot pattern.

Thank you for the feedback gentlemen. Now I really wish I owned a loupe! To the naked eye I don't see any indentations, but that is to my untrained eye. I also tried to take a closer pic and zoom in to try and look at the dot patterns, but again I'm not sure I'd be able to decipher the difference. Thanks again for the comments, I appreciate it.

[JeremyW]

Greg- When you look at your card, through the grandstands there seems to be tree tops, but it's not there on the LOTG copy. Weird.

[Jobu]

I don't collect E91 but I love this kind of thing and I look forward to following this thread. Good spot on the trees too.

My one question: why is he holding an egg?

[Leon]

I am open minded about print defects and love them but would need to see this one in hand. They both look like ink marks, after the fact, but they sure look identical. Hopefully they are from when they were printed.
Would love to see them with a loupe.

[Pat R]

IMO They're to exact to be anything but a print variation.
Plank E91 A.jpg

[Wayward99]

Thank you everyone for the feedback. I was tied up most of this past weekend so I wasn't able to do much additional research on this (looking for other examples, studying the rest of the group, etc.) as I originally had hoped. And while I can't definitively say what it is or isn't, at least to my eyes, with it in hand, it does not look like writing.

So my plan at this point is to send it out this weekend to get graded with a note/letter that asks them to consider adding it as a variation if in fact it was done during the printing process and isn't writing. I'll obviously include a link to the LOTG copy and any others I can find between now and the end of the week. I figure it can't hurt to ask, and if they're going to recognize the presence of a white triangle on a 1988 Topps McGwire card, they should surely recognize a prominent black marking on the chest of 1909 Plank card, shouldn't they??

And Jeremy - good pickup on the black markings/tree tops. The registration and black printing on my copy is definitely worse than the LOTG one. I'm guessing that's all it is, but that is a guess.

Lastly, if anyone is interested on where this card came from it was in this lot: http://www.ebay.com/itm/LOT-OF-9-VIN...vip=true&rt=nc

I will follow up once I hear back on the grading - and thank you all again!