Red to Orange in c. 1910 T and E cards.

[Pat R]

Good explanation on the fading red Greg. Like you on a rare occasion I see an example that is possibly a mis-print/variation but I don't trust any of them enough to ever pay a premium.
Here are a few T206's that have fading.

This Beckley was tacked to something with another card tacked over top of the right hand corner
Beckley.jpg

Pickering that had some kind of frame around it
Pickering.jpg

and a Beaumont with an outline of a corner tab
Beumont Sun corner tab.jpg

[Jerry G]

That's a good lesson, professor! Thanks.

[G1911]

Those T206's are excellent examples of this. The large number of 'orange' cards that are only partly orange and show exactly how they came to be orange is further evidence that almost none of the orange cards are misprints or anything but heavily damaged.

There are other color changes that happen naturally through storage and environment too, before we even get to the doctors. Jones here is not a freaky misprint, he was just glued down. A lot of cards glued to something have front and/or back discoloration resulting from it. Some of these cards have been soaked free cleanly and then get sold as wild misprints or errors, lacking the direct evidence on the card itself that it didn't come out the press this way. The vast majority of them are also just heavily damaged cards.

P.S. I just love that Fielder Jones, the manager of perhaps the only fielding-over-hitting WS winning team, was actually named Fielder.

[steve B]

Red pigments and dyes have been troublesome almost as long as we've had them.

Prior to the bright red of cochineal dyes from Mexico, the primary one in Europe was Alizarin Crimson. Which created a range of red to brown colors depending on the additives used. The most popular shade? Turkey Red.... Yes, a specific red developed in the middle east.

It was eventually discovered to be made from two different colorants in the same plant root, Alizarin and purpurin, the latter of which fades easily. Not that Alizarin doesn't also fade somewhat easily.
This became the first chemically synthsized dye in 1868 or so.

The reds from Cochineal (Insects) are durable, cloth dyed nearly 2000 years ago that has survived away from light is still red.
But as far back as it has been used artists have known that it will fade with light exposure, often turning towards brown before fading away altogether. (But not water and soaps, hence it's wide use in cloth and cosmetics. )

I'm not sure there's a lightfast red available today.



The top two cards, Downey and Lobert were part of a batch of framed T206s that turned up on Ebay. Supposedly 40+ years of light exposure while framed.
Downey is interesting because the team name is usually bright red, and here is obviously faded away, while the belt is printed in the pink color they usually used under the bright red* and which usually doesn't fade.

The other two are a Huggins with a particular color setup that leaves the subjects looking very washed out, not a misprint exactly, but I believe it left the factory that way. And Beck, which is legitimately missing two colors.

[G1911]

Originally Posted by steve B

Red pigments and dyes have been troublesome almost as long as we've had them.

Prior to the bright red of cochineal dyes from Mexico, the primary one in Europe was Alizarin Crimson. Which created a range of red to brown colors depending on the additives used. The most popular shade? Turkey Red.... Yes, a specific red developed in the middle east.

It was eventually discovered to be made from two different colorants in the same plant root, Alizarin and purpurin, the latter of which fades easily. Not that Alizarin doesn't also fade somewhat easily.
This became the first chemically synthsized dye in 1868 or so.

The reds from Cochineal (Insects) are durable, cloth dyed nearly 2000 years ago that has survived away from light is still red.
But as far back as it has been used artists have known that it will fade with light exposure, often turning towards brown before fading away altogether. (But not water and soaps, hence it's wide use in cloth and cosmetics. )

I'm not sure there's a lightfast red available today.

I knew you could give us the "why" it's the red that does this with time. Thank you

[bnorth]

Cool thread. Was told years ago this is why there are orange T206 Cobb cards. As soon as they started selling at a premium magically several showed up.

[G1911]

Here's another kind of color change that occurs naturally, without need for a card doctor.

These are C52's, which does not have a stock variation. The card on the left bears evidence of having been affixed to something, but appears normal, with the light cream stock and clearly black ink. The card in the middle is heavily toned, its back ink starting to lighten, but still mostly black. The card on the right is heavily toned, and its back is no longer black, but an almost teal green.

The cards in middle and right were from a very old (possibly original) outside the hobby collection, stored in an album for at least several decades until I acquired it, where cards were slotted in between two sides of thick paper. These aren't rare teal backs or a different stock, it's the back changing tone and ink color from its very long contact with the album pages. This is most commonly seen on Canadian cards, where this particular type of album storage was clearly more popular, but it is encountered on T cards as well. I hope Steve can explain why exactly this is so, because I can only speculate.

If an odd colored back is also toned, beware. It's almost never actually a rare printing error.