Wagner proof strip part II

[steve B]

In the other thread I posted about why the strip would be the way it is IF it's a pasteup from paper proofs. I also said I had some doubts about that.

So here's part II, some thoughts about if the strip is indeed a one piece printed strip. It'll go pretty far afield from just the strip, so I went with a new thread

Firstly, I don't think it really matters. The strip is unique, and if I had that sort of money to spend, I'd love to buy it. And have it in hand to study in detail.
Secondly, a lot of this is conjecture, and a bit of a stretch at that. I know it, flame away if needed, the asbestos suit awaits.

One of the things that makes me doubt the strip being a pasteup is the dividing lines between the cards. If you look closely, they're a bit wider at the bottom. That's more a trait of a printed line.
That it's 5 cards and 6 would seem to be an important T206 number I think isn't important. If it's one piece, it could easily have been cut down somewhere along the line.

And yet, those lines don;t appear on production t206s, and would seem to serve little or no purpose here.

I think I have an explanation
At a printers, a common cutter is a guillotine cutter. A stack of paper gets pushed against a fence and sideways against the side of the machine, a presser plate compresses it and holds it in place, and a blade slices off whatever sticks out. One of the traits of this sort of cutter is that it nearly always cuts nice square pieces.

But t206s often have a slight diamond cut. On a guillotine cutter that would require very sloppy work, or cards not printed straight on the paper.

There's a different type of cutter, one that's more suited to high production work like cards. In that cutter the sheet is fed between rollers that either draw the paper past the cutting blade, or that act as the cutting blade. Topps cards were cut this way for years, and commonly have diamond cuts.
Topps used blades, Opc sharp wires. Another method uses the wheels themselves to cut out a strip as wide as the wheel is thick.

I don't know for sure that American litho had that sort of cutter, but I feel pretty sure they did. The technology was old by that time, as it's related to stamp perforating machines. There's other traits, but it starts getting a bit more technical.

So the printed dividing lines could have served as lineup marks for the cutting process, and would have been cut out of the sheet as it was cut.

To make it more interesting, wider cutting wheels would cut a wider path and leave a narrower card. Like the American Beauty cards.

Anyone know offhand if AB did nonsports? And are they narrow too? Or are there nonsports printed by american litho that are narrow, and would fit in the time between the 350 and 460 series? Or just maybe the ABs were done consecutively using a nonstandard set of cutting wheels?

Fun stuff, to think the Wagner strip could show us something about how the production cards got done.

I've also considered that the dividing lines might be there to help someone see what an individual card looks like.

Steve B