Tobacco cards: what was the original art medium?

[Archive]

Posted By: <b>Anonymous</b><p>Although I am more familiar with early tobacco hockey cards (Imperial Tobacco C55 & C56), they have an identical "look" to baseball sets like T206, so I will ask this question on this forum:<br /><br />Can someone tell me FOR SURE (please don't speculate) what was the original art medium for the player portraits?<br /><br />Watercolor? Oil paint? Color pencil? Pastel?<br /><br />Thank you very much for any answers - they will help immensely with an art project that I am doing.<br />

[Archive]

Posted By: <b>davidcycleback</b><p>For many of the 1800s color baseball cards, like the Tobin Lithographs and Allen & Ginters, there was no original medium. Using special lithographic tools, the artist or craftsman did the art directly onto the printing plates (actually stones back then). The artist added oily substance to the printing plate, and the watery litho ink naturally avoids the oil-- thus creating the desired design. If you have a lithographic pencil, it's much like a regular pencil but the end has the oily/waxy substance instead of lead. You can draw with it just like a pencil or pen.<br /><br />Prints where there is no photoemechanical reproduction of a work of art, but the design is made directly into or onto the printing plate is known as an 'original print.' The artist likely has sketches or designs he uses to make the design, just as a painter has preliminary sketches, but there is no original medium in the sense of a modern card that reproduces a painting. Woodcuts are also original prints, as the craftsman carved the design directly into the printing plate, using various handheld tools.<br /><br />These 1800s cards were made the same handmade way a Picasso or Chagall original print was made. And an 1860s Harper's baseball woodcut was made the same handmade way that an original Rembrandt woodcut was made.<br /><br /><i> </i> * *<br /><br />As food for thought, I can tell you that the 1914-15 Cracker Jacks baseball cards have photomechanical reproductions of photographs and the red tinting was more than likely added only by the printing press. There likely was never an original work of art for the Ty Cobb or Joe Jackson that had any red in it. <br /><br />So the colors on a card often, but not always, existed on the original art.<br />

[Archive]

Posted By: <b>Anonymous</b><p>Thank you very much for your answer.<br /><br />Is the answer the same for the cards in the early 1900's, like the T206?<br />

[Archive]

Posted By: <b>Gilbert Maines</b><p>Certainly wood is not as durable a tool for printing as current technology allows. Can you distinguish degradation in the printing attributable to wear of the block over a print run? Were back up carved blocks occasionally necessary?

[Archive]

Posted By: <b>T206Collector</b><p>...if you will, a T206 printing plate in your collection. How sweet would that be?

[Archive]

Posted By: <b>Max Weder</b><p>Some of the original paintings from the 1930s are around, for National Chicle (football) and Diamond Stars (baseball). I saw the National Chicle at the National (Phil from the Bay area had them for sale) but I'd just be guessing at the medium.<br /><br />As for the T206s, I don't have a clue what the medium was. <br /><br />Howevever, I'd be interested in hearing about your art project. My spouse has done some larger paintings of early bb cards (<a href="http://ettinger.ca/lewis.html" target="_new" rel="nofollow">http://ettinger.ca/lewis.html</a> and <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/baseballart" target="_new" rel="nofollow">http://www.flickr.com/photos/baseballart</a>) and I'd be interested in others who have done or are doing the same.<br /><br />Max

[Archive]

Posted By: <b>Gilbert Maines</b><p>I own two somewhat large non-sport (maps) printing plates. A plate for t206 or any other issue would be a treasure!

[Archive]

Posted By: <b>davidcycleback</b><p>As opposed to from the 1800s, the majority of post 1900 cards, even early ones, were photomechanical reproductions of something. In other words, for a 1910 or 1920 card there was more likely than not a physical photo or sketch or painting it was reproduced from.<br /><br />For many prints, you can tell if they are handmade (original) by looking closely at the printing. Some ink patterns can only made by hand. For example, you can look closely at some Picassos and determined that the print could only have been made from the orignal printing plate.<br /><br />The T206 Honus Wagner is a reproduction of a photograph. There was a physical photograph, possibly with added details in ink or whatever. However, the photo probably had none of the bright colors that appear on the card. The colors were likely added somewhere/sometime else. <br /><br />Old printing plates do wear down. The details would get weaker and often times the artist would go back and add more detail. In an academic catalogs of the prints of famous artists, like Rembrandt, there are details of different 'states' the prints come in. In cases, you can date when the print was made by identifying the state. For some types of prining, like etching, it is known about how many prints can be made before the printing plate has to be 'reworked' (reworked = artist going back with his tools to add detail to the plate).<br /><br />Of interesting note, in the fine arts, the printing plate is often physically defaced, called 'cancelled', to prevent any more prints being made from it. An example of cancelling would be carving a deep cross across the image on the plate. Commonly, a print or two is made from ruined plate to demonstrate that the plate was destroyed.

[Archive]

Posted By: <b>Max Weder</b><p>My earliest sports printing plate of any note is a plate for Ron McAllister's Hockey Stars Today and Yesterday, published around 1950. Very cool item.<br /><br />Max

[Archive]

Posted By: <b>Gilbert Maines</b><p>Of course with Rembrandt, collecting his work by state and reworking would require a collector of substantial means, but perhaps that would make for an interesting collection applied to a lesser artist.<br /><br />Or maybe one could collect harpers woodcuts that way.

[Archive]

Posted By: <b>davidcycleback</b><p>There are touring public print shows were you can view and purchase original<br />Rembrandts, Picassos, etc. They are not unlike a baseball card show. I went<br />to one and was fumbling through a pile of prints on a dealer's table. I <br />suddenly realized they were original signed Picassos with price tags<br />like $15,000 each. I figured I probably should not be fumbling through them.

[Archive]

Posted By: <b>Anonymous</b><p>All of this is very interesting and helpful, so thank you.<br /><br />One final question: if the T206 Honus Wagner is a reproduction of a photograph, why does it not look at all as such? It is much cruder and "lower resolution" than a photograph, and looks instead like a drawing or painting - sort of like old-school "comic book" art.<br /><br />Thanks again!<br />

[Archive]

Posted By: <b>davidcycleback</b><p>The black parts of Wagner and his uniform are reproductions of a photo. The colors are basically 'colorized' giving it the comic book look. Also, lihtography was not as good back then at reproducing photos, contributng to the low resolution look.<br /><br />As the below 1960s Warhol shows, the mere act of adding bright colors can make a photo-realistic image look cartoon like.<br /><br /><img src="http://www.neptunefineart.com/images/warhol/cow1.jpg">