Looking at the same large size note on two different sites with comparable condition and price, one of them has whiter looking paper but the ink color doesn't seem as rich, whereas the more cream color paper seems to have more robust coloring so my question is... Is whiter paper preferable for the older notes or is the cream color the more natural/expected color for a hundred year old note? Might the whiter one have been "lightened" or something?
Could be lightened, but no reason to suspect it just because it is lighter. A lot of old paper has toned somewhat from age. I prefer a crisp white on notes in high grades I am paying good money for... paper tone matters to me. Alas, this is another area not really properly graded in my opinion, just the folds... any that is a quality miss to me.
If you got these images from two different sites, then they presumably come from two different scanners/cameras, which may have had very different ideas about white balance. If you could get both notes in hand together, they might actually be the same color (or the second one might even be lighter than the first). That's not a thing that can easily be judged from images.
I prefer a darker more defined look, especially when it comes to getting Them graded, they tend to grade better
Thanks for the replies.. I had looked up Grading as was also surprised that paper color wasn't mentioned.. As far as those two notes are concerned, I'm actually more drawn to the cream colored paper but as was mentioned, it could be due to scanner differences but I do like the intensity of the cream color note more than the other one with the lighter paper
Personally, I go for nice ink color for eye appeal and don't give much weight to the color of the paper, but that's just me.
A darker color, just looks more authentic to me, but everybody has there own guide lines and what they like