T220 Coburn Variation (One does exist!), and Donovan background changes

[Exhibitman]

The Goodman silver was carried on early checklists decades ago. I finally dropped it when I realized that no one had ever seen it. My suspicion is that someone a long time ago typoed "Goodman" and "Goldman" and the error stuck.

I'm not sure I'd consider the blue man a true variation; I'd need to see more of them. It may just be an inking variation with missed ink. The Johnson Marlboro card sequence does seem analogous.

[G1911]

Originally Posted by Exhibitman

The Goodman silver was carried on early checklists decades ago. I finally dropped it when I realized that no one had ever seen it. My suspicion is that someone a long time ago typoed "Goodman" and "Goldman" and the error stuck.

I'm not sure I'd consider the blue man a true variation; I'd need to see more of them. It may just be an inking variation with missed ink. The Johnson Marlboro card sequence does seem analogous.

I’ve looked for the source of Goodman since this post and never found it. I can’t find any old checklist of the set card by card at all, nor a reference to the checklist in what I’ve seen from the hobby pioneers. Donovan always made more sense than Goodman as card 25, because Donovan is the single boxer image of its type without a silver, and every other card with Goodman’s image type (Posing in stance in ring with solid backdrop), was added for the white expansion.

Coburn is recurring. Since this post I’ve located and bought more copies, though it is tough. The blue silhouette matches exactly the shape of the mans image (minus part of the left leg). None of the copies I’ve found show a missed ink pass on the card (would it even use blue ink to create black for his suit? Think that would just be a black ink pass and if black was missed it would not be blue?). As this doesn’t affect anywhere else on the card, or any other card, recurs and matches exactly the change made by American Lithography to move the man, I’m pretty confident the blue mans are from the early white print run. All I have found have a 649 back, which was probably issued first (though not all 649’s were printed before the 30’s from what can be told from other Mecca sets).

Still have no clue why they would edit either image like this though. Can’t even think of a good reason to modify either of them after release like this, much less any evidence. The change in Donovan’s image is at least a major change artistically, and the white border card image better fits with the others, presenting a similar scene to many of the other type 1 images in the set. The Coburn removal seems to have been done in haste (They never got it completely right), is not a major artistic change, etc.

Still think the changes here, for whatever reason, are probably key to the short printing. Corbett and Donovan are so rare that they were probably pulled from production completely, but I doubt expectedly. A 23 card sheet doesn’t make sense, in none of its multiples does a sheet size come out in a logical way (and should result in obvious SP’ing or DP’ing besides the two cards that might as well not exist). AL was set up for, I think, 25 card multiple production. Donovan being pulled and not replaced until the white run must be because of the carefully and well done change to the entire card art. Every T220 miscut showing another card that I have seen shows the same card was on top of it, though we know from other AL printed sets that this is probably not true up the entire column and there are probably 2-3 different in a column depending on the layout used. The evidence is less than one should be comfortable with, merely that it suggests Corbett being the unlucky sheet mate of Donovan and that column cut off to make the redo of Donovan’s card best seems to fit what is known. Have made no progress since this post in going from ‘most plausible idea’ to ‘in fact’.

[Exhibitman]

Given the major redo of the Donovan art and the fact that he has two cards in the set, perhaps something went wrong with the printing stone or plate for the Donovan and they had to pull it?

Corbett has always had me wondering if maybe there was some sort of contest involved.

[G1911]

Adding in a photo of a second blue man card; my research notes file indicates I have 3 of them but darned if I can find what box I put #3 in. It is a very small minority of Mecca 649 cards, that's for sure. Left is man at left Silver, two middle are the blue man variation, right is the white border normal with a faint black outline of the mystery man.


Taking a close look again, I notice that on the blue man cards the yellow ink from the entire outline of his hat is still present as well. On the final version of the card on far right (and all 8 other examples I have in hand to examine closely), there is only a very faint and thin dash line of yellow behind the burgundyish line in the lower roof. There is also a very small change to the bottom of the upper roof, going from tan to stray yellow to the final light burgundyish color. Second attachment circles these spots for clarity. There is also a grey streak through the mans right leg that doesn't seem to be offset ink (the color layers never really line up exactly on ALC cards), as there's no reason to produce this color in that spot. It seems more evident than before to me that this was a sloppy erasure of the man that was then again corrected (but never quite properly). N54 limits my pics to about 80kb, making it harder to show so clearly, but in hand it's a lot easier.


Second, the more I think about the Donovan, the less able I am to come up with any reasonable hypothesis. Typically we have many plausible theories and no direct evidence with these old T cards, but this one I can't think of any theory that fits. I'm no artist or printing expert, but if it was a broken printing plate, then why would they not just use the painting they had on file from the art department (or contractors or whoever was being paid to produce the artwork that then led to the plates and actual production) to produce a new one? Why would they go commission the artist to redo the entire background, and then make a new plate from that? Clearly they still had the artwork, or they would have had to redo the bottom ~70% of the card as well instead of just the background.


In no other ATC/ALC set did they make such odd and even pedantic changes to a card. I have no idea what to make of this still and keep going in circles every time I tackle this set instead of working.