It is possible that this was a legitimate factory cut. I am well aware of all the reasons people like my friend Wonka (Hi John) think it is not possible. But let me throw out a possible scenario.
We are reasonably certain at this point that Wagner and Plank (and a couple of others) were added at the end of the 150 series. A small number of those made their way into Sweet Cap packs. It is possible that they were printing Piedmont sheets with the intention to distribute them when they were notified of the need to stop the press to pull the Wagner. Maybe a very small number of those actually made it into pack resulting in only one surviving. Or maybe some were cut at the factory but never put into packs and an employee brought it home for his kids.
The point is that for me the three previously known examples (two obvious printer scraps and a hand cut card in the '80's) are too small of a sample to draw a definitive conclusion. I am not saying that it definitely happened in this way. I am just saying that something like this is possible. And IMHO, a look at the scan is insufficient for making a definitive determination on style of cut. By outward appearances, I think it people were not biased to assume it was not factory cut, no red light would be going off when seeing that card. It looks good.
And regardless of aptness of the slab, it is a spectacular card with one of four known Piedmont backs.
JimB
Last edited by E93; 03-21-2012 at 09:39 AM.
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