Tag: ghost

T206 Ghosts, Wet Sheet Transfers, and Post-Factory Transfers Explained

There is a lot of confusion and misinformation out there with regard to T206 ghosts.  As a result, collectors are often hesitant to collect them, for fear of being taken advantage of.  It doesn’t help that many sellers misrepresent what they are selling.  So, let’s get into it.

“Ghosts”

A “ghost” is a card that has one or more layers of ink printed out of registration in a way that creates a “ghost-like” effect.  The McBride above has a ghost printed in light black ink slightly above and to the left of the main image.  The Hoblitzell below has the ghost off to the right of the main image.  You’ll also notice part of the card that was printed to the left of Hoblitzell is also visible.  These are the most fun types of ghosts to find, as it tells you which player was printed next door to Hoblitzell.  In this case, Hoblitzell’s sheet-mate is Art Fromme.

Ghosts can occur on either the front or back of a T206, though the front is much more common because there were a number of color passes that could possibly get out of alignment.  Some front ghosts (like Hoblitzell) were factory-cut, while others (like McBride) were scrapped at the factory, and later hand-cut from a sheet.

Ghosts that appear on the back of the card are referred to as “Cylinder Print Ghosts”.  There was at least one sheet of Piedmont 150s where a black outline ghost of the image on the front was mistakenly printed on the back.  You can check out the article by clicking the link below:

The T206 Piedmont 150 “Cylinder Print Ghosts”

Cylinder print ghosts usually sell in the $1000 plus range.   Front ghosts like the McBride and Hoblitzell shown sell for a premium as well, but nowhere near as much as the cylinder prints.  Though the market for “T206 Print Freaks” can be volatile, I would expect McBride and Hoblitzell to sell for at least $200.

The one thing all ghosts have in common is the “ghost” was printed on the card in the factory.  This is an important distinction because I constantly see sellers trying to sell a card that merely has a transfer on it as a ghost.  The purpose of this article is to help you understand the difference.

Piedmont 150 with Cylinder Print Ghost

Wet Sheet Transfers

Wet sheet transfers (also commonly referred to as WST) are different from ghosts in that they are not printed directly on the card.  Rather, they are a transfer of ink from one card to another.  When T206s were printed, an entire sheet of fronts was printed, then put onto the stack of completed sheets.  Then the next sheet was printed and added to the stack.  The vast majority of sheets were completely dry before being added to the stack, but occasionally the ink hadn’t quite dried.  This led to a transfer of ink from one sheet to the other.  Because the sheets were stacked, a transfer was only possible from the back of one card to the front of the card on the adjacent sheet, or vice versa.

WSTs occurred most often with black ink, and specifically black ink from the back advertisements.  My guess is the black ink took longer to dry, leading to transfers when the fresh sheet of backs was placed on top of the stack.  As a result, the vast majority of wet sheet transfers out there are Cycle, Old Mill, or Tolstoi backs which have WST of the back advertisement on the front.  These transfers vary in intensity.  Some are very faint and hard to see, and some are very dark and obvious.

This Topsy Hartsel T206 has a Sweet Caporal Wet Sheet Transfer

The other type of WST is a transfer of ink from the front of a card onto the back.  These are often pretty faint and tend to be a vague outline of the front of the card.  The back of the Joss Portrait below is an example of such a WST.  Typically, WSTs on the back of a card are not very impressive, just like this one.

It’s important to understand that wet sheet transfers are not ghosts.  Ghosts are much more rare and valuable.  They are also more impressive and interesting to look at.  Sadly, there are sellers who try to pass WSTs off as ghosts.  You’ll occasionally see a WST listed on eBay as a ghost and priced at some insane price.  Hopefully, as people become more educated about this subject, those type of listings will start to go away.  Unlike ghosts, WSTs do not command much of a premium (if any) when they sell.

Post-Factory Transfers

The third type of transfer is one that happens after the card leaves the factory.  Typically this type of transfer is caused by some sort of moisture damage.  I’ve seen cards that were clearly in a stack that got soaked in water.  Many cards with post-factory transfers will also have paper loss as a result of the cards being stuck together and then separated.  These post-factory transfers will usually be faint and not at all precise.  A wet sheet transfer of an Old Mill back is a precise transfer of the back onto the front of the card.  Post-factory transfers are not like that.  There is a lot of color bleed in a post-factory transfer.  The Seymour below is a good example.  It has the tell-tale paper loss on the back, and the transfer of the Sweet Caporal ad onto the front is faint and indistinct.  It kind of looks like a watercolor copy of the ink of the back of the adjacent card in the stack.  Though post-factory transfers are fairly uncommon, they don’t usually command any premium when they sell.

This Seymour has a post-factory transfer
The back has the tell-tale signs of a post-factory transfer

The T206 George Gibson with Ghost Image That Sold Last Weekend

This little gem was sold last weekend via PWCC Auctions.  The auction boasted an impressive array of T206s, and this one was kind of buried among the offerings.  It was listed as “Ghost Image” due to the dark rectangle that appears over the front of the bottom 90% of the card.  When I first saw it, I was pretty sure I knew what the faint lighter image on the on the ghost overprint was, but I needed to verify.  I am not particularly good with Photo Shop, but I thought it might be fun to show the process I used to figure out who the ghost was anyway

I thought it looked like the ghost overprint was upside down, so first I turned the image upside down:

In this particular case, I had a hunch of who the ghost might be right when I first saw the card.  However, there have been plenty of times when I haven’t been so sure when looking at a T206 with a ghost image.  In those cases, the first step in the sleuthing process is to identify any distinguishing marks (or in this case, the spots on the ghost overprint which are lighter than the rest of the ghost).

Once you’ve found some spots to look for, you need to go through other cards that were printed in the same series.  In this case, Gibson is a 150-350 subject and this card has a Piedmont 150 back.  So, if the ghost overprint features another T206 pose, it will be one of the other 155 poses from the Piedmont 150 checklist.  When I am searching for a possible match, I like to use the checklists at T206resource.com and click on the scan links at the right side of the page.  You can scroll through the entire 150-350 Series checklist on this page.

Like I mentioned earlier, I had a hunch right away.  I pulled up this pose, and found an immediate match:

I wish I had the Photo Shop skills of Chris Browne or Erick Summers, but unfortunately this is the best I can do.  If you look closely, you can see that the previously identified lighter spots on Gibson line up perfectly with Eddie Cicotte’s right arm and the creases in his pants.  How this card might have come to exist is a mystery to me.  I suppose the lighter ghost print could have come first, with the printer’s realizing that the sheet was placed upside down and then turning it around and printing the entire card again.  This fun error card sold for $249.83.  I imagine most bidders were not sure what they were looking at, but the winner most likely knew that the ghost was Cicotte.

The T206 Piedmont 150 “Cylinder Print Ghosts”

*This article features insight on the printing process used to create T206s courtesy of Steve Birmingham.  Thanks Steve!

The Piedmont 150 Cylinder Print Ghosts are among my favorite T206 print oddities.  They are unique in that the ghost image on the back is a crystal clear mirror image of the front.  Cylinder prints are not exclusive to Piedmont 150 backs, but the most high profile Cylinder Prints are all from presumably the same Piedmont 150 sheet.  There are some blank backs that have portions of the front image reversed on the back and I’ve seen a couple Piedmont 350s, but those are a subject for a different article.

To the best of my knowledge (and memory) this is the current checklist of known Piedmont 150 Cylinder Print Ghosts:

  • Bowerman
  • Chance red portrait (there are actually two of these)
  • Clarke portrait
  • Elberfeld NY
  • Gilbert
  • Overall portrait
  • Shaw St. Louis
  • Weimer (two of these are known)
  • Young bare hand shows

Here are some recent sales of the known copies:

  • Clarke portrait SGC 60 – SOLD for $4,200 in 2016 via REA
  • Elberfeld NY GAI 4.5 – SOLD for $2,160 in 2016 via REA
  • Young bare hand shows PSA 5 – SOLD for $2,350 in 2008 via REA

In order to understand how these beauties were created, I reached out to my friend Steve Birmingham, an expert on printing processes.  His explanation is as follows:

Cylinder prints can happen for anything printed by offset lithography.  Interesting fact- A cylinder print on an earlier flatbed press is what led to the invention of offset lithography.  There are two basic sorts of press, flatbed offset and rotary.  There’s proof that in general T206s were printed on flatbed presses, so I’ll stick to those at first.

On the flatbed press the prepared stone is placed on the bed.  It has areas that are coated with a substance that repels water and the limestone will hold water.  The stone is dampened, and then inked.  On most flatbed presses there’s a carriage that moves the stone across the dampening , inking and offset rollers/cylinders.  Once inked the inked image is transferred to the blanket.  Next, the cylinder with the blanket turns up against the impression cylinder which may also have a rubber covering.  The paper is squeezed in between them, making the image print from the blanket to the paper.  And all is well!

Except the flatbed presses were mostly hand fed, and occasionally a paper sheet wouldn’t be fed in to print. In that case, the image would transfer to the impression cylinder. The next sheet would then get a reversed impression on the opposite side as well as the normal impression on the correct side.

And that’s where cylinder prints come from.

Of note, generally at the time the colors were printed one at a time. Being an accident the cylinder impression should only be one color. I’ve seen some indication that a two color press may have been used, but so far no two color cylinder impressions.  A genuine one would be a real prize, as proof that a 2 color press was actually used.

Identification is usually pretty easy, as the impression will have lots of detail compared to a normal offset transfer, (Or WST as most people call them.) It is possible to have a fully detailed normal offset transfer, it just requires quite a bit of pressure on the stack of sheets. Most times there isn’t enough remaining wetness or enough pressure.

On more modern presses the impression cylinder is smooth metal with no rubber coating. But with the blanket being rubber, cylinder Impressions can still happen. Also the plate is on a roller and there’s no moving carriage, just a few more rollers.

*The bulk of this article (all of the technical stuff) was written by Steve Birmingham.  Thank you Steve!