Sunburned Groom... A question for the t206 experts here

[bn2cardz]

Originally Posted by Runscott

Andy, I have seen these before - I'll dig through my old card pics and see what I can find.

Cool. I figured there had to be other oversaturated t206 cards, yet I haven't been able to find any. As mentioned above, I only seemed to be able to find missing color variations, not added color variations.

I also just haven't been able to find info on what caused it. I had my own guess about it being double printed, but I couldn't think of why the printer would have felt the need to do that (and again how the register stayed fairly clean).

[steve B]

The ink colors were hand mixed, and were at least into the 1980's. So a certain red would be a basic red plus a bit of some other colors to alter it just a bit. So if the press operator mixed a dark batch that day or had some leftover from whatever he did before that he decided to use up that would do it. That's the most likely explanation.

Sloppy cleanup between colors would also do that.

Or if they ran red ink on the tan plate.

Registration once adjusted will stay in place accurately, even from one sheet to the next. A double printing of one color is possible, but unusual.

There's a few other odd things that could cause that, but they usually leave other signs that I'm not seeing.

Have you got a high res scan 800-1200dpi? That will show enough detail to get a better idea of which thing happened.

And if someone has a high res scan of a regular one that would help too. I don't have Groom yet.

Steve B

[Runscott]

Here are some I've owned in the past - best res I have:

[bn2cardz]

Originally Posted by steve B

Have you got a high res scan 800-1200dpi? That will show enough detail to get a better idea of which thing happened.

Steve B

Right now the highest I have is 600dpi. I don't have a typical Groom. I have been wanting to add one to my collection now to compare, but I am not going to pay the prices I am seeing just for a comparison card.

[steve B]

Looking at the top of the hat it looks like the pink might be overinked. The presses have controls for how much ink is supplied to the rollers, and if there's too much or if the ink is too thin it can overcome the wetness of the plate and show as a smeared print. Usually it shows as blurriness at all the edges and can make screened areas seem solid.

I finally scanned the one overinked T206 I have. Not a really serious overinking, it makes most of the hat red. The black is also out of register to the left. So you can see the right side of the red and it's a bit fuzzy from the overinking especially at the top right.

The Groom scan doesn't show a lot of bluriness, but the pink wouldn't show that as well especially if they're screened.

The system resizes scans, so it's not easy to tell. You can always Email a scan to me.

Steve B

PS If you're into the printing it's worth scanning at 1200. There's so much detail and you can usually see each color. The Bush for example has alignment marks at the top for black red pink and yellow. and Black pink yellow and blue at the bottom as well as a few other layout marks.

[bn2cardz]

My home scanner had a default of 600dpi. I looked at the close up scans (I suggest people never do this if they are under the delusion that their cards don't have flaws or are "undergraded") and enjoyed trying to figure it out.

I was going to scan it at a higher resolution on my office scanner, but forgot to bring it will me to the office today. I will email them to you when I do scan them in. You can send me your email. Thanks.

[62corvette]

As a clergyman who has done over 550 weddings, I've seen a lot of sunburned grooms.

[steve B]

Looking at a high res scan it looks like it's actually two passes of the same color.

In the pic below which is a blowup of a section near the upper left corner you can see the two passes. one appears lighter and is slightly left and lower than the other. The blue lines point to the top of a kidney bean shaped part of the dot pattern that's both repeated and easy to see. The other lines and brackets point to other features of the pattern that are visible.

Since the two patterns match up it's extremely unlikely to be a different color.

I can't tell if one is actually darker than the other or if it's just that the areas where the two overlap is darker. Possibly a bit of both. And the patterns overlapping means the face and all the other areas where the pink overlaps itself have little to no white showing through.

The other thing that can cause this is running the inking rollers while adjusting the registration like on the Garvey I posted in another thread. But that usually gives a very reduced first impression and a proper second impression. On this card the two appear to be nearly the same.

I'm fairly sure it's a double printing of the pink, and the first card of any sort I've seen that I feel confident is a double pass of the same color.

Steve B