It's possible.

Personally I'm surprised they didn't print the backs first. There's always some damage and wasted sheets and avoiding wasting sheets you already put at least 8 colors on seems a bit crazy.

The only reason I can think of it using the same fronts, "stocking" a lot of them and printing backs as needed for different brands.

I think there's to much evidence that they didn't do this.

Well, that's the rabbit hole of T206....

To me there's some evidence they did it with some brands, especially in the 350's where there are shared groupings of prints/no prints.
The big brands, Piedmont, SC and maybe a couple others were probably produced almost continually, while others like the SL groups were probably on-offs at first.

That's why a ton more study of the tiny details is needed.
For example, on a simple one.
The Hindu and original OM Sl players were probably printed from a common set of fronts. If we examine a lot of fronts closely, we will either see no difference making a point for a single front press run getting two different backs. If we can tell the difference, that would almost certainly prove each brand got its own front plates.

There being probable different presses and locations makes it all the more complicated. But the place to start is with the more finite groups.

But I think there's to much jumping around with the backs when you start comparing them. there are some subjects when compared to another was printed with all the same backs except 1 or 2 if they were done with pre-printed fronts what happened to the one or two backs one of the subjects wasn't printed on?

On the other hand if you're saying that they printed up a bunch of fronts one day and then used those sheets to print 3 or 4 different backs the next day and then the process started again a couple of days later I do agree with that.

I'm not sure how long the time would have been, but yes. Smaller orders like Drum would have been done on whatever current front sheet was being run.

The cutoff for a brand getting their own plates or ordering too small of a quantity is probably right around Polar Bear who had their own fronts for at least one sheet.

I believe some of the more difficult groups and at least one of the very rare combinations are from leftover fronts being used up.

Very interesting. Especially the entry noting the discontinuance of the Old Mill T206 cards as of 12/15/1910. I'm wondering if this likely ties into the switch from the insertion of T206 cards in Old Mill packs to the inclusion of S74 silks instead, and is further proof that the S74-1 white silks were, at their earliest, a late 1910 issue? And if so, it also helps confirm that the S74-2 colored silks were definitely a mid to late 1911 issue, at their earliest, as well.

With the exception of Old Mill cigarettes, the T206 cards and S74 silks do not share distribution in any other brands. The only other cigarette brands S74 silks were distributed in were Turkey Red, Red Sun, and Helmar. So the timing of the discontinuance of T206 Old Mill cards with the emergence of S74 Old Mill silks makes logical sense.

But what about the issuance of the T205 cards? They are now considered exclusively as a 1911 issue, and also distributed with brands that never included T206 cards either (Hassan, Honest Long Cut, etc.). But unlike the S74 silks, T205 cards were most commonly issued in the same two brands that were also the most commonly issued with T206 cards as well, Piedmont and Sweet Caporal. So is there evidence to possibly show that T206 cards stopped being distributed in Piedmont and Sweet Caporal packs so as to transition to just distributing them with T205 cards instead? I've always considered T206 cards as being distributed from 1909 through 1911, but never really thought about when that distribution actually ceased in 1911. Or were both T206 and T205 cards being distributed with Piedmont and Sweet Caporal cigarettes simultaneousl in 1911?

We often talk and debate on this forum about when a card issue actually first came out and was distributed, but not so much about when a card issue actually ended and it's distribution ceased. Especially when the cessation of one issue's distribution could point to and tie down the actual starting distribution date of a different issue that takes over a particular cigarette brand.

I'm wondering if Brett did the fronts and American Litho the backs. I found out a little while ago from a reliable source that Topps printed their backs first then sent them to another printer to run the fronts. Could this have happened with the ATC sets?

I'm not sure if this is what your saying Dave but the T206 fronts were definitely printed first not the backs.

Yes, that's indeed what I was saying-it makes sense to me the backs could have been printed at American Litho once the front printed sheets were sent there. I forget the exact AL addy (18th St ?) but it's about five miles from their location uptown to Brett using 20 blocks to the mile

It was 19th street and 4th Avenue.

I can't find solid proof of the connection between ALC and Brett, but I think they are probably really the same company but different locations and branding (If they aren't, the phrasing of the Ball and Hyland letters would suggest the printers couldn't both print an athletes image, image was given to one litho company and not the tobacco issuer). I agree that this makes it likely T206 was printed in multiple locations considering the broad timespan of its print run, though don't think anyone has found the definitive proof yet.

Still can't find this "Old Masters Co." name Fullgraff was using as an actual company.

It's possible, but I'm trying to think why they would.
If Brett was involved, it was probably because they had higher speed equipment. It doesn't make much sense to print on high speed equipment, then ship the stuff somewhere else that had slower equipment to finish it.

The Topps thing is puzzling too. Assuming it was done in the junkwax era, it would require shipping massive amounts of sheets. There are noticeable differences within many years going back into the 60's, and especially different inks.

I highly doubt this Steve, it's clear American Lithograph was the biggest back then and it seemed they wanted everyone to know they were the biggest and the best They actually made a good pairing with the American Tobacco CO.

I agree it is puzzling but do note Topps used close to a dozen different printers overall; this was before junk wax but it's not clear how far back the practice started. The sheets would be trucked from the first location to the second. if ATC did this, drayage within NYC would be possible between the two shops. Anyway, just pointing it out as a possibility.

The numbers I came up with using the number of passes required and Scot Rs estimates on overall production combined with some info about the sheet rate of the flatbed presses worked out so that constant production would have been necessary just to get them all made. And that's also using a fairly large sheet size, and not counting anything but press time.

Running multiple presses would make it possible, but a big busy shop keeping at least two presses in constant production seems unusual.
The place I was at did a job that was a million 2 part deposit tickets for a big bank. Heat sealed into packs of I think a couple hundred. Two colors, so two passes through the press. With modern sheetfed rotary presses that still took a month plus. Upwards of 200 million cards with 9 passes. on a machine that maxed out around 1200 sheets an hour is somewhat crazy.

The description of Bretts rotary press says 10-12000 sheets a day, which seems low. It's possible they understated the speed to keep it sort of a trade secret. The Rubel rotary offset press which was built around the same time could do around 2500/hr making it about twice as fast.

The stamp on the back of the T220's indicates Brett was involved with those, either as a part of ALC, or as a subcontractor.
And that second ledger shows some very substantial quantities produced for other sets probably by someone else.

I've been thinking that instead of the masters being changed a couple times over the course of both the 150's and 350's the differences I've seen may be differences between printers. It's going to take a pretty major project to really get somewhere on just cataloging those differences.

I'm not sure if there's a way to tell if something came off a flatbed press or a rotary for an item like cards. With some other stuff the plates were made flat and bent to fit the cylinder in the press, which changed the image size.
But that may not have happened on a lithographic press. especially if the transfers were applied directly to a cylinder.
Another thing that would take some study, to see if some percentage of any particular subject had image size differences, which would be small, around half a millimeter if the rotary plate was fairly thick.

I'm pretty sure American Lithograph would have had several presses printing the T206's. I'll have to check but I think it was in the court documents in Greg's T220 thread involving Folgraff that American Lithograph said they would open up 28 of their presses for one of the projects.