T206 Murr'y: New Back Discovered & What Murr'y Says About T206 Printing

[Jobu]

I have been tracking the T206 Murr'y and am happy to add a brand new back to the list - my Sovereign 460:

338227

I also have one of the Tolstois, so I have done a lot of research on this card. I believe the new find brings the total known Murr'y examples to 13 individual cards spread across at least 6 backs:

1. Lenox (black) – 1 card
2. Old Mill – 3 cards
3. Tolstoi – 2 cards
4. Sweet Caporal 350-460/30 – 4 cards
5. Piedmont 350-460/25 – 1 card
6. Sovereign 460 – 1 card

I said “at least 6 backs” because there is a front-only scan on the T206 museum (http://www.t206museum.com/page/ga_murray.html). This card doesn’t seem to match the other scans that I have, but it is possible that it is the Piedmont 350-460 because I don’t have a scan of that one either. If anyone has either of these scans, or knows N. Racine who apparently contributed the scan to the T206 Museum, please let me know.

Many of the scans I have are clearly crappy – if you have a better copy, you know what to do. :)

I have records of 20 sales, many of which are multiple sales of individual cards. There is one 2007 eBay sale with no scan – it was graded SGC 10 at the time. There is a chance that this is the Sweet Caporal card that I do have a scan of.

Here are all of the scans that I have:

338228

I wrote a previous T206 thread arguing that the fronts of cards were usually, but not always, printed first (post 10):

http://www.net54baseball.com/showthread.php?t=221694):

The Murr’y error is a good example of a “front first” card. With 13 examples spread across 6 backs, it seems likely that the printer created a stack of complete fronts with blank backs. In the process, they damaged the plate and broke the A. The printer fixed the flaw quickly, didn’t print all that many with the broken A, and decided that the error was small enough that it wasn’t worth scrapping the finished sheets.

The Murr’y also tells us that these 6 backs were printed concurrently. This makes sense because all of these backs are in the 460 series (http://www.t206resource.com/Series%20460.html).

It also tells us that all of these backs were printed at the same factory. That isn’t a blanket statement for all T206 (I know there is some disagreement over one vs. multiple print shops), but for these backs we can confirm at least some of them were printed in the same place.

The amazing thing with the Murr’y error is what the large number of backs for the small overall number of cards says about the printing process. I have three hypotheses for how this might have happened.

HYPOTHESIS 1

I think the general assumption is that printers ran off huge consecutive batches of cards for each particular back. While that may have been standard practice, Murr’y shows that this may not have always been the case.

If we assume a single press, this means that within a single large stack of finished fronts, a printer split the small total number of Murr’y fronts across 6 backs .

Scot Reader mused that maybe 1% or less of the original T206s printed survive. Applying 1% to the Murr’y, that means that 1300 error cards were printed. So, within a stretch of 1300 sheets in a pile, the printer filled an order for 6 backs. Assuming an equal order size for each back within the pile, each back brand order averaged 216.67 cards.

It could also be that a longer print run for a back ended just at the first card and a long print run for another back started with the last error card, but that would still mean that 4 complete orders were printed out of 1298 cards for an average of 324.5 cards/back in each of those orders.

These are much smaller orders than I would have assumed were commonly filled given the need to set up a press to run each back brand. Given this, I think something else is likely going on.

HYPOTHESIS 2

It could also be that multiple presses were run at the same time, each printing a different back.

Under this scenario, the printers would have grabbed handfuls (maybe about 216 sheets deep????) of the blank backed sheets and taken them to their presses. If multiple backs were being printed concurrently, it is easy to see how the Murr’y could have been spread across so many backs with so few total error cards being produced.

(Aside: Obviously some or all of the presses in the room could have printed a single back for huge order and not all of the presses would have had to be in use at the same time. Or, even if all the presses were active at once, they didn’t all have to be in use to print T206 at the same time, which would explain how the Lash’s Bitters and T82 Heroes of History scraps came to be printed on T206.)

HYPOTHESIS 3

It also have been that there multiple piles of backless fronts and printers randomly grabbed from different piles. This would theoretically have allowed for one or two presses to create the Murr’y back distribution that we see. This seems unlikely though as each pressman would likely have been closer to one pile than he was to all of the other piles, so I don’t know why he would pull sheets off of anything but the closest pile to him. (Exception: if two presses were back to back with multiple stacks of sheets between them then the stacks might have been close enough to equidistant for them to pull sheets off the top left to right.)

CONCLUSION

Hypotheses 1 and 3 both require some legwork, so I think hypothesis 2 seems like the simplest and most likely scenario. For the cards that had the smaller total print runs, like Lenox, it could be that the Lenox press completed that back and was then shut down or switched over to one of the other low total print run backs. This would let this scenario play out with fewer than 6 presses running T206 at the same time.

I am looking forward to everyone’s thoughts.

[mrvster]

WOW!!


I need time to process my friend....great theories though:)


do you have the 460 ????????????

[Jobu]

Thanks JV! I do have the Sov 460 --- and one of the Tolstois.

[mrvster]

great score!

[DJR]

Great info, thx. I bought this from Turner but sold it. Happy Holidays to all :)

[asoriano]

Great info, thx. I bought this from Turner but sold it. Happy Holidays to all :)

David, you actually purchased the Murr’y Piedmont 350-460 Factory 25 example from me around 2008. Bummed I don’t have a scan of the card!

[CobbSpikedMe]

Hey Bryan,

Great post and thoughts. I think hypothesis 2 makes the most sense too. I find it interesting that there are six different backs that come with this front error. I just never thought a rare error like the Murr'y would've been printed so many times that it would cross over to that many back printings. It didn't dawn on me that they could have been printing multiple backs at the same time on different presses at the same location. :o

Oh, and congrats on finding the new back and acquiring it as well!

[ullmandds]

Congrats and very interesting bryan!

[Pat R]

Great research Bryan. For the past few years I have been doing research
on a growing group of print/caption flaws and I probably have more
unanswered questions now then I did before I started the research.

In my opinion the reason for a lot of the unanswered questions is
that the way they printed the sheets changed from series to series
and it even changed during the printing of a each series and each
back.

I don't think the printers fixed the Murr'ay I think the numbers are a
result of how they were printed based on my research of the group
of flaws.

One of the things I've found is if a flaw is found on a non piedmont
back so far it's always found at a larger % than the piedmonts. I think there
are a couple of possible reasons for this. They printed smaller sheets
of the non piedmonts and it depended on whether the plate with the flaw
was used for a particular back. The other possibility is that larger sheets
of fronts were printed and divided in half or thirds to print two or three
different backs and only one would have the position with the flaw.

I'll use the Davis AMEP as an example of why I think you have the
numbers you see on the Murr'ay's.

The Davis AMEP is on one of the plate scratch sheets that based on the
scratches I know is at least 12 same vertical subjects high So only one
out of twelve Davis cards printed from this sheet would have the flaw.

338262

338261


These are the numbers I have on that flaw.
338260

Since the Piedmont backs were printed first there was probably some
sheets printed before the flaw occurred. The SC649's % is similar
to the Piedmonts but the Sovereign150 and SC150/30 %'s are
double the Piedmonts. All of the other the flaws have similar numbers
and the best explanation I can come up with is the smaller sheets/
less plates on the non Piedmonts.

[Sean]

Bryan, great work. I notice that you have the front of my Old Mill, but not the back. Here's both, in case you need it:


338290

338291

[steve B]

The flaw would most likely have occurred while laying out the stone. For that position, the A just didn't transfer properly.

I doubt it was fixed, the simplest fix would have been scratching in or painting in the rest of the A on the stone, which would usually be obvious.


The scenario for why that many different backs would be a matter of how the orders were placed as well as how the cards were produced.


I think it's most probable that the orders were for a certain number of cards with a particular back. And it's also probable that to some extent, the player selection was part of the order. The bit of packing logbook the specifies something like "for not Philadelphia area" would indicate that there was some regional distribution. It's entirely possible that the brands with fewer sales would be ordered together with a certain selection of players.


The larger brands may have been ordered simply as "X number of Piedmont baseball subjects" (Or something like that. )

The selection for the smaller brands may have been arranged around one of the more mid range brands. And the exact selection simply up to timing.


So yes, there would have been a large stack of fronts somewhere.


The question is what exactly was done.

Usually the required fronts would be brought to the press all together. The presses were a bit slow and may have been manually fed. Even with an automatic feeder chasing around the shop for a fistful of fronts wouldn't be done as it's just too inefficient. So if the order is for say 20,400 cards, then maybe 100 sheets would be brought to the press. (assuming a 12x17 subject sheet ) Those would be run all at once, and sent to cutting/packing after they were dry. (Unless they were shipped uncut to the ATC packing plant.) The number seems low, even for brands with few sales like Lenox or Broadleaf.


Larger brands would probably have larger sheets, that would have been used for … maybe everything down to maybe Old Mill or Polar Bear. Those two brands being in an odd spot, Polar Bear certainly got at least one sheet that was all its own and with some OMs being very tough they may have as well.


Production being what it is, if these were ongoing print jobs, there would have been extra sheets printed. Either in anticipation of a future order, or as backup in case something went very wrong, like printing a big portion of the order in the wrong color, or feeding a couple hundred sheets upside down causing excessive waste.

The question becomes, once it's clear that Lenox won't be needing any more cards, what do you do with the leftover sheets of fronts that are perfectly good? Run them on some other brand, hopefully another of the smaller brands, or maybe you make a Piedmont stone to match the smaller sheet and run them as Piedmonts
(It may have been technically possible to run the smaller sheet with the larger stone, but we'll mostly ignore that for the moment, and there's no actual proof that the sheets were different sizes besides the logic of using much larger sheets for Piedmont and SC where the orders were probably for a million or so if not X number a month until we say stop )

[brass_rat]

Bryan, great work and very nice thread. Thanks to everyone for the thoughtful replies this far.

I hope it doesn't derail the conversation, but I'd like to ask the following question in the context of the printing process discussion (although not specifically about the Murr'y):

Is this scenario possible? (Think of it as hypothesis #4:)
They keep the name types around and reuse them... And they aren't connected to the team names.

Perhaps the factory worker Murr'y conversation went like this:
One printer says to another:
"Yo Bubba, the Murr'y is messed up. Put in Murray."

Bubba puts in a better name plate but the Murr'y gets tossed to the side.

Later, Bubba just gets careless or lazy and starts using Murr'y again, resulting in other backs receiving newly printed sheets with Murr'y, but printed at a later date.

Evidence? Check out this T215-2 Steinfeldt (and the T215-1 Steinfeldt for reference).

The T215-2 name is in T206/T215-1 font, but the team name is in Type 2 font as the team name changed from St. Louis to Cincinnati. The Type 1 and Type 2 cards are a few years apart.

This is the only T215-2 player that I am aware of that has any Type 1 font, and it's like this on both examples of the Type 2 Steinfeldt that I've seen.

So what happened here? Any relation to how multiple Murr'y backs are found?

Steve

[ullmandds]

Bryan, great work and very nice thread. Thanks to everyone for the thoughtful replies this far.

I hope it doesn't derail the conversation, but I'd like to ask the following question in the context of the printing process discussion (although not specifically about the Murr'y):

Is this scenario possible? (Think of it as hypothesis #4:)
They keep the name types around and reuse them... And they aren't connected to the team names.

Perhaps the factory worker Murr'y conversation went like this:
One printer says to another:
"Yo Bubba, the Murr'y is messed up. Put in Murray."

Bubba puts in a better name plate but the Murr'y gets tossed to the side.

Later, Bubba just gets careless or lazy and starts using Murr'y again, resulting in other backs receiving newly printed sheets with Murr'y, but printed at a later date.

Evidence? Check out this T215-2 Steinfeldt (and the T215-1 Steinfeldt for reference).

The T215-2 name is in T206/T215-1 font, but the team name is in Type 2 font as the team name changed from St. Louis to Cincinnati. The Type 1 and Type 2 cards are a few years apart.

This is the only T215-2 player that I am aware of that has any Type 1 font, and it's like this on both examples of the Type 2 Steinfeldt that I've seen.

So what happened here? Any relation to how multiple Murr'y backs are found?

Steve

Interesting?

[Pat R]

The flaw would most likely have occurred while laying out the stone. For that position, the A just didn't transfer properly.

I doubt it was fixed, the simplest fix would have been scratching in or painting in the rest of the A on the stone, which would usually be obvious.


The scenario for why that many different backs would be a matter of how the orders were placed as well as how the cards were produced.


I think it's most probable that the orders were for a certain number of cards with a particular back. And it's also probable that to some extent, the player selection was part of the order. The bit of packing logbook the specifies something like "for not Philadelphia area" would indicate that there was some regional distribution. It's entirely possible that the brands with fewer sales would be ordered together with a certain selection of players.


The larger brands may have been ordered simply as "X number of Piedmont baseball subjects" (Or something like that. )

The selection for the smaller brands may have been arranged around one of the more mid range brands. And the exact selection simply up to timing.


So yes, there would have been a large stack of fronts somewhere.


The question is what exactly was done.

Usually the required fronts would be brought to the press all together. The presses were a bit slow and may have been manually fed. Even with an automatic feeder chasing around the shop for a fistful of fronts wouldn't be done as it's just too inefficient. So if the order is for say 20,400 cards, then maybe 100 sheets would be brought to the press. (assuming a 12x17 subject sheet ) Those would be run all at once, and sent to cutting/packing after they were dry. (Unless they were shipped uncut to the ATC packing plant.) The number seems low, even for brands with few sales like Lenox or Broadleaf.


Larger brands would probably have larger sheets, that would have been used for … maybe everything down to maybe Old Mill or Polar Bear. Those two brands being in an odd spot, Polar Bear certainly got at least one sheet that was all its own and with some OMs being very tough they may have as well.


Production being what it is, if these were ongoing print jobs, there would have been extra sheets printed. Either in anticipation of a future order, or as backup in case something went very wrong, like printing a big portion of the order in the wrong color, or feeding a couple hundred sheets upside down causing excessive waste.

The question becomes, once it's clear that Lenox won't be needing any more cards, what do you do with the leftover sheets of fronts that are perfectly good? Run them on some other brand, hopefully another of the smaller brands, or maybe you make a Piedmont stone to match the smaller sheet and run them as Piedmonts
(It may have been technically possible to run the smaller sheet with the larger stone, but we'll mostly ignore that for the moment, and there's no actual proof that the sheets were different sizes besides the logic of using much larger sheets for Piedmont and SC where the orders were probably for a million or so if not X number a month until we say stop )

Steve, if this is what happened shouldn't there be more than one confirmed
Piedmont?

[brass_rat]

I hope that my questions regarding the T215-2 Steinfeldt didn't contribute to this thread trailing off... There's some interesting stuff in here! :confused:

[steve B]

Steve, if this is what happened shouldn't there be more than one confirmed
Piedmont?


I've been away for Christmas. Good holiday with family:D


There should be more Piedmonts. Interestingly, the old SGC pop report shows 7 SC backs for Murr'y.


That there aren't more Piedmonts could be that they just haven't turned up. Or that Murr'y was on a smaller sheet that didn't see much Piedmont use. Or that Murr'y was printed on a sheet that was full size but intended for smaller brands, or before/after Murray on a normal Piedmont sheet and a handful get run as leftovers or fill to finish an order.


And yes. It could be plate damage instead, but it just doesn't seem "right" for plate damage. Even if it was something like a stone chip grinding off part of the A there should be small chips/scratches around that area.

Unless it's a result of some sort of shenanigans by the press operator stoning off part of the A.....


But that's getting pretty far removed from the simplest explanation, which is often the closest to correct.


A corrected Murr'y would be quite a prize if it's identifiable (As would a provable Murray before some damage)


Mysteries like this are the biggest reason I want to really study each individual card in fine detail. Decent scans are really hard to get. I did a test with Magie, and came up with at least 8 individually identifiable groups. And could probably get to 12 with a closer look at more scans.

Most 150's and 350's were printed at least 3 different times, with clear differences on some cards. I haven't really looked hard at the 350-460's but I'd expect at least two different for all but a handful of cards.

[Jobu]

Thanks for all of the input everyone.

David, thank you for posting your card. That is a new one, I will add it to my first post. Any chance you have a scan of the Piedmont??

Great thoughts Pat and Steve. After thinking about what you have each added, I think I am more confused than when I started. :)

Pat, you raise good points about this error only being at a single position on one sheet and the likelihood that it wasn't fixed after it happened (until the fronts were laid out again).

Steve, I think it might be more than just improper transfer given the print dot from the caption that is next to the logo - that seems like the caption was printed and then something knocked a piece off, no?

Another question: How likely is it that multiple presses were set up to run the cards? If it would have been extremely likely to have only been a single press, then that will help answer some question.

Brass Rat Steve, that is a cool find and I have no idea what to make of it. :)

[Bpm0014]

I'll use the Davis AMEP as an example of why I think you have the
numbers you see on the Murr'ay's.

The Davis AMEP is on one of the plate scratch sheets that based on the
scratches I know is at least 12 same vertical subjects high So only one
out of twelve Davis cards printed from this sheet would have the flaw.

I have a Davis AMEP. Can't be too many of these around. I wish it would get some love...

[GoCalBears]

Would be interested in a tolstoi backed murr’y if anyone wants to part w one.

[steve B]

Steve, I think it might be more than just improper transfer given the print dot from the caption that is next to the logo - that seems like the caption was printed and then something knocked a piece off, no?

Another question: How likely is it that multiple presses were set up to run the cards? If it would have been extremely likely to have only been a single press, then that will help answer some question.



I should be more clear.

The stones were made using transfers printed from a master. Think like the old iron ons, or fake tattoos. Only printed with a very thick ink like tar onto an easily dissolved paper. It would get placed on the stone with solvent to make it stick, then the paper would be removed.
The Murr'y would be from a position where most of the A peeled of along with the backing paper.
That's what I meant by a bad transfer.


It's entirely possible there were multiple presses set up. I think it's likely given the approximate production, and the typical sheets/hour the presses could manage.


There's also a few things that point towards at least one multi color press being used. And that most cards went to press at least three times with slightly different art. And that the print groups now considered standard were a nice start, but not entirely accurate, just a decent basic framework to fit things into.

I generally don't get into that stuff unless it's directly important to a discussion, as it takes an already complicated subject, and makes it even more complicated.

[toppcat]

I wonder if such small numbers of sheets were used in order to fill out pallets that were close to being shipped? "Hey Mac (it's NYC, there were no Bubba's :D), let's top up those Tolstoi and Lenox pallets before we ship them outta here!"