coulld some T206 sheets have been cut down and then had the backs printed?

[Pat R]

Just speculating if some sheets could have had the fronts printed and then
been cut down before the backs were printed.

For example say a sheet with 8 verticals of the same subject with 4 verticals
of another subject on top had the fronts printed, the sheet is then cut 2/3 X 1/3 horizontally and the backs are printed on some of their smaller printers
with the bigger 2/3 sheet having the more popular brands and the smaller
1/3 having the less popular brands printed.

This would utilize the different size printers they had and account
for the small number of no prints in the popular brands and the larger no prints in the less popular brands.

The wording on the right is from the middle enlarged so it would be readable.

[mrvster]

hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm....I like your theory....

[obcmac]

Isn't the separate sheet explanation a lot simpler? I don't think any printer would add a step where sheets had to be trimmed before backs were printed on there. The small number of no prints in the large brands doesn't really need to be explained away...they just printed a greater variety of fronts for the large brands.

Mac

[Pat R]

Isn't the separate sheet explanation a lot simpler? I don't think any printer would add a step where sheets had to be trimmed before backs were printed on there. The small number of no prints in the large brands doesn't really need to be explained away...they just printed a greater variety of fronts for the large brands.

Mac
It would only be one cut on a large stack of sheets.

I could be wrong but I was thinking even though it would add an extra step
it would be more productive if they had all the large printers set up to
print all the fronts on large sheets.

Then for example the 2/3 sheet would be sent to a medium size printer set up
to print the Old Mill backs and the 1/3 sheet would go to a small printer set
up for the Hindu backs.

[steve B]

It's possible, but I think unlikely. Most of the evidence we have points away from it being done that way.

If that was what was done there wouldn't be a need for the marginal cutting lines on the back but not on the front. And I can't recall seeing a T206 with a cutting guideline on the front at all.

Most of the groupings point away from that as well. aside from the overprints150 has very few no-prints and most of them are withdrawn cards.

It's possible that it was done the other way around, fronts printed on a large sheet that then received multiple backs possibly with some space between panels.
But there's no proof of that either, so it's purely a wild guess.

When I have these sorts of ideas, I try to figure out what the sheet would require technically for it to be workable on the shop floor. Multiple backs from the same sheet, or cutting a sheet down to print different backs would be more chaos than you'd usually want for a print job. So you'd need markers on the sheet fronts indicating what backs they were intended to have similar to the factory numbers in the margins.

Of course, that doesn't mean things weren't done oddly to push out as many cards as possible. I know of another very high volume print job that produced occasional waste "scrap" some of it because they were producing two different but nearly identical products but the entire sheet wasn't scrap, just portions. And when those portions added up they sometimes got converted to a different version of the same product.
http://siegelauctions.com/enc/pdf/1923Rotary.pdf

Steve B