*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!