That's a really interesting point. We do not know much about the production of any of the N, T or E cards. We know something about the marketing thanks to advertisements that have come to light from old publications in the digital age. It leaves it to intuition and experience. I once tried to construct a list of N-T-E boxing cards ranked from rarest to easiest. It was just impossible: is there any meaningful distinction between the E125 Jack Johnson (SGC pop 1, PSA pop 1), T226 Red Sun Johnson (SGC pop 3, PSA pop 1), N223 Kinney Hold to Light Sullivan (SGC pop 1, PSA pop 4), and N60 Jem Mace (SGC pop 1, PSA pop 0)? And there are so many other rarities from around the world that aren't even found in TPG pops or are barely there. I mean, find me one of these:

https://photos.imageevent.com/exhibi...%20Leonard.jpg
https://photos.imageevent.com/exhibi...%20unk%201.jpg
https://photos.imageevent.com/exhibi...eli%20Clay.jpg

I agree that it's hard to put a number on how many T206's were produced but I think it might be a more accurate to compare them with cards from the same timeframe that we can put some kind of production number on.

How do you know the fish cards in the Fullgraff book are T58's?

We do know from the ATC ledger that T206's were packed with T58's one each per pack as follows

Piedmont - began packing 1 fish (T58) and 1 ballplayer 4-18-10 Discontinued pack fish 8-24-10 continue packing 1 ballplayer.

Sovereign and Sweet Caporal share the same dates - began shipping 1 fish and 1 ballplayer 4-23-10 discontinue packing fish 8-29-10 continue packing 1 ballplayer.

Comparing the T206's to the T58's we know for sure that they started packing T206's in July 1909 in some brands and continued packing them in some brands until the summer/fall of 1911.

So the T206's were distributed for 6-7 times longer than the T58's in 5x more brands than the T58's and from what we do know shows that there was 1 t206 packed with every T58 that was distributed. There are also ads that show there were 2 T206's packed in some packs and also in Polar Bears.

Now if the 40 million fish cards are T58's we don't know for sure if that's all that were produced we just know that's what was produced by Brett lithograph at a particular time.

I think we can say they are T58 because there is no other fish series of tobacco cards from the 1909-1912 period, and while this ledger includes N cards very precise dates are given on this page that rule them out. It can really only be T58. Some of the other sets in this page are difficult to identify (“Actresses, Athletes of America, Indian”), but this one is straight-forward.

I think the issue with comparing T206 to unpopular non-sports sets is that our sources for T206 populations (‘I see X more than Y, dealers have more of X than Y, pop reports, etc. are so heavily and clearly biased in favor of baseball subjects that no meaningful guess can be made beyond the most broad of terms in obvious cases (such as “T206 is more common than T220”). There may well be more T59’s and T206’s, it’s just that nobody besides a handful of us cares.

The ledger has some packs getting two cards, and the period ads show this as well. This doesn’t appear to be so for the entire production; if there is any evidence that every T42 was paired with a T206 I’d love to stand corrected. That this is true for both series of t58 in their entirety is a deductive jump. It is a mighty leap away from the evidence to state that there is a Piedmont T206 for every 10 Piedmont cigarettes.

I do not think we can reasonably say it is true that T206 was issued non-stop or almost non-stop during its production run from earliest date to last date, which all estimates seem to take for granted. We do not know this.

I know we disagree on the ATC ledger, but it includes some dates that seem to contradict internal and external evidence. Some series with a single issuer have multiple issue dates given in it, and multiple “stopped packing” dates. Much of it is missing, and it means we don’t know which sets all have these multiple dates and which don’t. The ledger dates are highly questionable, and even if the contradictions between issue dates and card text are ignored, they indicate cards were issued in a stop-start pattern, not sets for many months or even years continuously without break.

Frankly I hope you are correct, sir, about the ledger, and my skepticism is misplaced. That there is some logical way we can arrive at a statement that resolves the contradictions and without having much of the data originally present on start/stop dates and checks out as true. I remain skeptical, but I’m always skeptical. I guess, to extend the theme, this is my general disagreement with much of what is said to be so in the hobby - it tends to rely on a series of stacking deductions and/or conclusions credited to authorities and then referred to and repeated as fact, whereupon further deductions are then stacked on top, too far away from the actual evidence itself to be anything more than an educated guess at best.

The 5X more brands for T206 doesn’t seem a strong argument to me - the brand gap is mostly from very uncommon backs. Half of them have almost 0 impact on our total for T206, whatever that unknown and unlikely to be known figure is. Piedmont, Sweet Caporal and Sovereign of course are not 1/5 of T206 cards. If we want to go by total possible back types, T59 dwarfs T206 and must have had many billions if we use this logic.

I concur entirely that the 40,000,000 may not be representative of that sets entire run. I would think it quite possible it is not the entire production run, that multiple facilities for larger sets may well have been how it was done. We haven’t anything to prove this was done; but the bizarre structure of these firms and their collaboration on even small non-card orders for cigarette makers would suggest it may well be true. It does not appear to be the cards printed at Brett though; it notes in this section that Brett “burned out” (still not sure if this is literal or a comment on inability to meet the massive order in time) on March 30, 1910. The figures are for February 23 to May 16, 1910, according to the text. This seems to be the production at Old Masters Litho. Corporation, not Brett (they are presumably, from Fullgraff’s contract, the court records etc. very closely related or two subsidiaries of the same parent) - I haven’t yet got around to digging into Old Masters yet.

T206 may have had 200,000,000. Or 370,000,000. Or 500,000,000. I think no guess given can be close enough to the evidence to be reasonably accurate in any meaningful way. I would very much like to be wrong; attempting to understand the ‘true scarcity’ has given way to ‘relative scarcity’, and even that is a wildly imprecise thing of which we can still say little with any reasonable degree of practical certainty, to Adam's point.

If I've learned anything form research it's that intuition and experience are usually wrong (mine sure is). I don't think I've ever even seen an image of a N60 Jem Mace, I thought they were all actresses.

Ok makes sense on the fish cards for some reason I thought there was another set from that time period.

I think Hindu and Polar Bear were the only products that Advertised two ball player cards.

I don't have any ironclad proof that the T206's were issued non stop but I'm pretty confident that they were.
ads for Piedmont, Sweet Caporal and Sovereign ran in sporting life from July-September 1909
ads for Hindu ran in papers from August-September 1909
ads for Piedmont ran in papers from February-August 1910
Old mill ads ran in papers in August 1909 and March - September 1910
the ATC journal shows packing and shipping dates from 1909-1911


No problem with different opinions on the ATC ledger I think many of the tobacco card printings changed midstream and unless there is a specific
card pasted next to a date that's wrong I don't find a problem with the printings on a couple of backs not matching dates unless it's off by an unexplainable amount of time.

In statement about the 5x more T206 brands I wasn't implying that it would multiply the T206 production by 5 over the T58's.


I thought the court documents indicated that Fullgraff was working for Brett Lithography during the time period of the dates in the Fullgraff book? I haven't been able to find anything on an Old Masters Lithography Company. I did find that it was a frequently used term in the business though.

You have probably mentioned this before but if the panels you have are from one sheet and the write ups on the backs of the T220 cards are correct they must have done the write ups after August 10 1910 and before September 27 1910.

What I mean is that if you develop enough expertise (obsession) with a set or niche you can get a pretty good idea of how prevalent they are.

N60 has a few boxers: Edward McGlinchy, James Mace (aka Jem Mace) and Joe Goss. Here is a Joe Goss that Lelands sold in 2019:

https://auction.lelands.com/images_i...em_94872_1.jpg

it is the only N60 boxer I have seen sold since 2011. I would have chased it up some (sold for $776.40) but I was over-committed chasing some other lots I wanted more.

Fullgraff was definitely working for Brett when some of these sets were printed. he began work there early in 1909. 'Old Masters' seems to be a term in common use in the industry, but I haven't yet got to them as a company. The Fullgraff ledger has what looks like his business card on the cover for the "Old Masters Litho. Corporation". This has not come up as an alternate name in my digging into Brett, and the "Litho Corporation" part makes it sound like another one of these semi-separate businesses instead of an internal company nickname. It seems like a different company from Brett at this point, but we don't have much. His ledger includes N cards. Fulgraff states he's been doing business for "25 years" with the American Tobacco Company in 1911, which may be a rounding but if literal would place him involved with them starting in 1886 or so, in time for the N sets, in his mid 30's. I have found very little on Fulgraff's business life in the 19th century. Perhaps Old Masters Litho. Corporation is his name for his own work? What we would today call an independent contractor? That kind of setup might help explain his seemingly multiple employers, and conflicts of interest that don't seem to have bothered his employers. I will see if I can find anything, there are many possibilities.

For the T220 dating:
The backs of T220 had to have been finalized after August 10, 1910. Gans card very explicitly includes his date of death on August 10th, and he is included in the first of the two series. The Jordan panel bears a Brett stamp dated September 13th, 1910 with blank backs. I think all of these, save for possibly Beecher and Wilson that connect together, are definitely from the same sheet after piecing them together for a couple hours.

The ATC Ledger says they started packing Tolstoi backs of the second series on March 11, 1911, which is entirely possible and plausible but surprisingly late for the back texts that often cut off a year before that or more and ignore subsequent events.

My notes are getting quite long and I may have missed something or am having an idiot moment, but where does the September 27th, 1910 cutoff come from?

As a sceptic, I don't trust that expertise because it usually proves wrong. Hobbyists have proven themselves generally unable to accurately evaluate scarcity even within a single set. The books are replete with fake short prints, and 'unknown' short prints. The 1966 Topps High # thread here, for one recent example. 1955 Topps All-American is another, there are many of them. Big, popular sets that the conventional wisdom of hobby experts on scarcity is just wrong. If experts, whose judgements are rooted in an appeal to authority, cannot discern scarcity within major, single sets I don't see how they can reasonably be trusted to tell apart sets from completely different areas of the hobby from samples that are in no way random. I include myself in this, my opinion on the scarcity of my passion sets 'ain't really worth a lick', these judgements are rooted in a fallacy.

That's an awesome card. I think I have a pair of actresses in one of my random-old-card boxes. I had no idea boxers even existed.

Donovan's card says that he's 62 years old and he would have turned 63 on September 27th 1910.

Yes, that would be a progressive proof. There are still some books from ALC that have complete progressive proofs of each color plus most combinations for cigar box labels.

I don't recall ever seeing a full book for cards.

I think it's likely these were from the masters used to print the layout transfers for the production plates/stones.

It sure would.

And the quantities shown in the ledger! It's possible the survival rate was way lower than thought, and unfortunately that Scot Rs possible production numbers are low by quite a bit.

Another possibility I need to eventually get to the local historical society to check on is the orange border candy boxes which share some images with T206
The company that printed those movd from Boston to here in Lowell, printed mostly novelty candy boxes including the orange borders, then promptly went out of business in 1910 or 1911.
I suspect an ALC connection there too, and I'm hoping the local history society has some info.

Gotcha. It’s a little odd how the backs of T220 don’t follow much of a design pattern, like T205, T201, T53, T118, T29-2, the other ATC sets with texts back generally follow a uniform format within a set, T220 almost seems random.

I wonder if they handled it similarly to how the big box stores do some things like groceries. Where an outside vendor is responsible for stocking an aisle, including competitors products?

It's also not uncommon in manufacturing and printing for a customer to own the original art they paid for, (Or molds or other tooling) and the company stores it for convenience.

As an example, when the contract for stamps changed from one banknote company to another the dies plates etc all got sent to the new company.

Fascinating stuff.

Especially the bit Pat found about a rotary press using an aluminum plate before 1903. I had thought from what I've read that similar presses were used to print on tin, but not necessarily on paper.

https://www.aptpressdirect.com/blog/...printing-press

https://www.historyofinformation.com...hp?entryid=666

Well, if you are a hardcore boxing collector and have been for decades you tend to get a pretty good feel of scarcity based on experience. The cards I listed are just f***ing impossible to find. My want list has cards that I just don't see except once a decade or so, or when a collector dies or quits. Many of my eBay searches haven't had a hit in years and no AH has sold those cards either. Searches of TPG populations are a good shorthand, though obviously incomplete, and the sales records for graded cards are helpful for analyzing frequency of transaction. A valuable low-pop card that has little or few sales over a span of years is one I safely can conclude is rare.

That said, older assumptions are definitely being revised all the time. I try hard to remember to stay humble and open to new information about the cards I collect, because information does surface from time to time as people research or as I research new sources of data that come online for public use. Like the Burdick Collection. For my initial boxing card deep-dive research I had to go to NYC and make an appointment at the print department of the Met to research his collection holdings. Now a lot of the same stuff is online and publicly available. I also know for a fact that there are several jaw-dropping collections out there that will eventually free up most of the known populations of many of the rarest boxing cards. May not be for decades, though.

One thing we really haven't had ever for boxing is a "Black Swamp" style find of material that busts the pop of a rare set. Finding a single T226 Red Sun of a Negro [sic] pugilist is a find given how tough Johnson, Gans, Jeannette and Langford are to find at all in that set. Candidly, I do not think we will. Unlike Topps, these things were made a long time ago and many of them must have been made in far smaller quantities than Topps cards. Unless it is a test set, nothing Topps is truly rare in the absolute sense.

Steve, is that why we see tearing by the alignment marks I've seen it on other sheets and Greg's Jordan panel with the alignment marks on the border is torn.
Were they held down with tape?

There is also a tear on one of the E229 panels where a side alignment mark is, if this might matter.

Greg, were the T220's a one or two series release?

I think two. The silver border series was definitley printed and done first, only from Mecca 649 (the only Mecca release to not have a factory 30 version). We know this because of the Coburn card; the man to his left on the Silver border card was for some reason removed from the image for the white border. There are two variations of his white border card showing different levels of removal of the man in the background.

The change in card images strongly suggests to me the silver's were not issued concurrently with the white borders, but this can't be stated as absolute fact.

The checklist was then expanded to 50 cards and issued as a single (probably) White Border series, with Mecca and Tolstoi. You can tell, for the non-fight-between cards, purely by the style of the artwork and its background whether a card was first produced in the Silver run or was only issued with the second series. I would think there was likely a gap between Mecca and Tolstoi's release of the 2nd series white border run, if the date in the ATC ledger is accurate.


I think it is a strong possibility that, internally, ATC thought of T220 as the same set as T218 (note the series caption on card backs, there are no "athletes" in T220, used by 2 of the 3 T218 brands; 2 of which did not issue the entire set), and T220 is really the third series of T218, making what we call the third series actually the fourth series.

I hope some of this stuff means something to you, Steve, I don't know squat about printing really.

For the sake of completeness, here are my T25 strips I got recently, clearly not printed in block format. These two strips do not fit together, and have a right side border. Presumably there were more cards to the left in each row.

This is all I know of of uncut ATC/presumed American Lithographic cardboard cards. The T62 internal test sheet, these T25's, the T220 Silver's, These E229 or D353 sheets, and then of course the famed Wagner strip. There is probably more known to others, this is just all I have records of in my photo archive or possession.

Thanks Greg. What I was wondering was if there were any of the panels that would seem out of sequence on this sheet but if the silver run was one series any of the T220 subjects could make up a panel on a silver sheet.

For what it worth as far as the T220 Tolstoi's go I strongly feel the Tolstoi back were printed later in each T206 series that they were printed in. I felt that way before I knew about the ATC journal and the info in the journal that pretty much backs it up.

The last date referred to on card backs, other than Gans, is on Beecher (a card in Silver), a fight on April 14, 1910. A couple other cards with fight records end in March, 1910, several end in 1909 when that fighter was active in 1910. None of the white border only subjects carry us beyond the text on the silver backs. The ledgers March 1911 date for T220 Tolstoi thus seems rather late to not be a re-issue of the Mecca whites.

Gans was under contract when he was still alive (his T218-2 card was almost certainly, though not 100%, designed while he still breathed and was covered by the New York law that, I understand, only applied to living persons) and his T220 card was probably designed and planned before his death. His death was major nationwide news when it happened, makes sense it would be appended to the back text shortly before finalization. And it makes sense they just wouldn’t bother to update the backs on the 25 subjects carried over to the second white border series. But every one of the 25 subjects in the white border only group has their back text end a full year before the March 1911 packing date given for the Tolstoi’s. It’s also possible there was sometimes a large gap between printing and pack out.

The more I think about it, the more I think it probable (certainly pure opinion and not fact) that the Tolstoi’s were a re-issue of the set. If that fits with T206, that seems a further indication of a pattern. Tolstoi strikes me as a more interesting brand in relation to cards than most. It ranges from a mildly tough back to an extremely difficult back (T218’s second series, the bane of my card life), to easy peasy and commonly seen (T80). Old Mill is similar in this regard, all other brands off the top of my head don’t really fluctuate that much between sets.

I've begun my drive into "Old Masters Lithographic Company" and... wow, there isn't much at all. I haven't found squat from 1909-1912 that we want to focus on here. But there are some things.

Here's a company by this name, with a 1926 patent from the 350th volume of the Official Gazette of the United States Patent Office (https://www.google.com/books/edition...C?hl=en&gbpv=0, the .pdf is 547mb). A Thomas A. Meehan is either an executive of this company or the inventor of this product (I lay no claim to understanding what it actually is).

A Thomas Meehan apparently later owned a "Meehan-Tooker" company that purchased Bauer Lithography in 1946 according to an industry journal.

A Thomas Meehan published in Philadelphia in 1880 a collection of chromo-lithographs of botanical pictures, the Native Flowers and Ferns of the United States

I do not know that either of these men are the same Thomas Meehan, or that a Meehan or this Old Masters Lithographic Company is the same as the Old Masters Lithographic Company that Fullgraff, while clearly an Employee of Brett Lithography and with a deep association with the ATC and American Lithography, was using on his business card affixed to the cover of his ledger.

"Old Masters" was an industry term, and makes sense to use as the name of a lithography company; this may be a different company 15 years later. It may have been a name Fullgraff used for his business concerns as a contractor salesman (he gave up his salary in early 1910 after only a year with Brett to work commission only). This may have been a personal book for his own use. Even today many sales reps have not dissimilar spreadsheets tracking things themselves to validate their commissions and the like. Fullgraff was involved with card production of the classic N sets, the T sets, and evidently tried again in the 1920's. It's possible the figures recorded were for him to validate production counts and contracts for his commissions (which he clearly did, for he sued Brett years later for not paying him right), and he scrapbooked some of his creations out of hobby interest, pride in his work as he was a designer and marketer as well as a salesman at the least, or something else. Cards were clearly a significant part of his business life. Or it might be a formal ledger from this evidently small printer, that is presumably a subsidiary of American Lithographic, Brett, or both.

This would be a lot easier if it's buyer would out himself so we could see more than a handful of pages ;)



2023 EDIT: I am leaving what I said for the record, but coming back to correct a point on Meehan. The Thomas Meehan who published the book of botanical pictures is confirmed to be a different Meehan.

Meehan-Tooker was a significantly sizer lithographer. In 1964 they were bought by City News and Schneider Press, and added 60,000 square feet of offie space and 130 more employees. A Meehan does not seem to have been leading the company bearing his name at this time. There are numerous industry references to them from the 1950's and later in the New York area. They reincorporated in 1969 and now appear to be in NJ or possibly MI as a very small company. They had subsidiary lithography companies in NY as late as 1997.

So there is a Thomas Meehan, Lithographer, working for a company of the same name on Fullgraff's business card some time later. The Fullgraff book is presumably after 1910; the Dixie Queen's in it are probably from the mid 1910's. So this gentleman is a lithographer in the same place with the same business name a decade later, and then his name is used for a Lithography company which he isn't running anymore by the 1950's and continues to recent times. He may be the owner of Old Masters in 1926, he must be a significant employee at least. I'm not finding much on him from the 1910's or 20's. But this may be our path to ID'ing Old Masters.

The book of botany lithographs appears to be a different Meehan from this inventor/lithographer, a professor of the subject and probably not our man.

While trying to find a connection between this Meehan and Fullgraff, I found that Fullgraff was also an active member of New York Republican politics. He was a member of the Republican State Committee, President for the party of the 2nd Ward's 4th district in 1912. Evidently the man had time to do almost everything under the sun.

I strongly believe the Tolstoi's were not a re-issue with the T206's there are several Tolstoi's similar to this one that indicate they were printed with the T206's.

https://bid.robertedwardauctions.com...e?itemid=46257

Perhaps re-issue is too strong; not like T219 and T218, but issued some time after the other back in T220. I've found little to indicate production vs. issue time delays; how much they may have varied or if some smaller brands issued essentially surplus fronts with their ad slapped on the back. I don't know the T206 order myself very well.

What makes T206's so tough is there are there are so many print groups print group 1 the 150/350 series print group 2 the 350 only series print group 3 the 350/460 series print group 4 the 460 only series and then there are the Southern Leaguers and the 6 super prints. The Tolstoi's weren't printed during print group 1 I think they were one of the last backs if not the last back printed in the print group 2 350 only subjects but after that it gets tougher to figure out.

No success on clarifying Old Masters, or tying Brett to ALC more directly. I did find some stuff on ALC registering numerous cigarette brands, none of which I have heard of, in a compilation of 1911 issues of The United States Tobacco Journal (https://books.googleusercontent.com/...BbP1Evfh_PuOvw). One of the brands is "Lady Derby"; Derby was of course an issuer of T59 and a tough back, perhaps an off shoot of this brand?

If Fullgraff, ALC and Brett were doing everything the evidence thus far indicates, it begs the question of what the ATC actually did beyond pack and ship cigarettes. So many of the functions of a businesses processes and growth, R&D, marketing, etc. seem to be happening from the lithographers and Fullgraff who may or may not have been on their payroll too.

They did a lot of cigar box labels Greg, so it could be something to do with them.

Most all of these clearly are not for cards; but the copyright of a product or product logo would, one would think, be owned by the tobacco company, instead of the lithographic company doing their marketing and printing ads in various forms for them. The printer doesn't normally own the logo or name of a product for the firm they are printing ads for.

I must have misunderstood your post I thought you were talking about ALC registering cigarette brands and the link you posted doesn't work for me.

Let me try links again, validated these

1909: https://www.google.com/books/edition...gQ7_IDegQICxAD

1911: https://www.google.com/books/edition...J?hl=en&gbpv=0

ALC appears to be registering cigarette brands as trademarks. ALC is the printer of advertisements, pack wrappers, labels, cards, etc.. I found it odd they appear to be registering trademarks of cigarette brands for themselves. I would think this would obviously be something the ATC would do. When my company has a vendor print stuff or design a label, they don't get copyright to our brands. Again, the connection between the ALC and their apparent shadow subsidiaries and the ATC seems quite unusual. I'd love to stand corrected, perhaps I am misreading the source, but it strikes me as very odd.

Edit: Found the fire. Page 171 of the court transcript of the 1919 case. Failed in the Newspaper records, but Fuillgraff testifies about it on cross. He places it in 1910, burned out the 511 West 129th Street office. Brett had the place "reorganized" afterwards. His office, alongside other salesman, was there, adjacent to the "bookkeepers". The loss of records appears to be creating problems for both sides of the money lawsuit, as what Fullgraff was paid for some things appears to have burned as well.

Perhaps this is where a lot of the card-relevant records went - burned up in early 1910 almost as soon as they were filed.

From our discussion of fish cards and the production numbers, further detail is made on pages 125-126 of the 1919 case.

Card counts, set names, dates and payment sums are testified too. all dates are, I believe, 1909. It is unclear to me at present exactly when a sale became commissionable, but it seems before actual printing and delivery, on booking?

"On October 18th, 47,250 for the American Tobacco Company, the Indian cigarette card". This is presumably T73.

"In August 14th, was 5,000,000 cigarette cards of the pugilists, fighters which I had to get the privilege to make" - presumably this is T225 again. Fullgraff implies he himself was getting the legal approvals, matching the Hyland letter too.

"October 21st American Sports Publishing Company 5,000 car cards, $223" - I do not know what this is, tiny production run.

"December 6th, Kedival company 3,000,000 fighters, cigarette cards, do you want the size, 25 subjects, 83 cents a thousand, $2,490" - Further T225? This can only be T225. 83 cents a thousand cannot necessarily be used to positively calculate other runs if we have his commission, he makes clear there was bulk discounting.

"December 9th, Kedival company, 3,000,000 Athletic cards" - another T225 order? Khedieval did a series of 10 show dogs (T96), 10 aviators (T28), and the 2 series of T225 pugilists.

"January 11th, Surburg company, 5,000 pugilists, banners, handers, that is $285.50" - Surburg is the other issuer of T225-1. The "banners, handers" may refer to the posters featuring the images of the 25 cards. A couple complete ones are known in the hobby, and some handcut cards from it.

"January 11th, the Kedieval company, 5,000 prizefighter banners, reproduction of the cigarette cards on a banner" - yep, it's the T225-1 posters.

'February 23rd, American Tobacco Company, 3,000,000 Fatima cigarette cards, 25 subject, $2,880.00" - T106?

"
ject, $2,880.00. February 25th, Surburg & Company, 2,500 fighting banners, fighters banners, that is a duplicate order, $125.00. February 25th, Kedival Company, 2,500 sighting banners, $125.00; February 26th, Surburg Company, 2,000,000, cigarette cards, duplicates of the fighters ,$1,040. Now, these two order up here were afterwards consolidated and put together, because in getting a larger run they could get a lower price." - more T225-1 and ad materials.

"That made $24,554.05 for my year's business. That is February 26th, and, those orders were brought over to March 1st, 40,000,000 fish cards and 30,000,000 cigarette cards on the 1st, 2nd and 3rd of March." - the fish are T58, don't know the 30,000,000 reference.

"Then, they made those 15,000,000 on March 15th, put them together, so as to get a lower price and have a bigger edition. 40,000,000 fish cards and 30,000,000. And, these were in works in 1909. Mr. Frazier knew of the orders and therefore I was not worrying about my future business. I sold $55,000 the first three days of March 1910. That made me pretty hunky for the [Fullgraff is cutoff mid-sentence]" - Fullgraff made $$$$ off the ATC. $55K for just two of the sets in 3 days was an absurd amount of money in 1910. His commission is bumped up to 10% about this time. He seems to think the Fraziers have cheated him now, but trusts them at the time.


This raises to me the possibility that the ledger/journal is his notes for the 1919 court case, his first time in court he says.

Page 69: Before Brett, Fullgraff worked "a very short time" on pure commission for Trautman, Blampey & Bailey, lithographers. Before that he worked for "The American Lithographing Company.... seven or eight years". Before that, though possibly not immediately preceeding, he worked as a Lithographer for the Osborn Company.

This confirms the 1904 listing associating him with ALC. He definitely worked there, a very short time before he joined Brett, and for an extended time. He appears to have worked with them in the coming years on projects collaborating with Brett (Why ALC would need, of all things, a lithographer to print their images is not clear unless they are a shadow subsidiary). The letter he has Brett write to ALC recommending him and his work for employment after the cards are done seems even odder, they obviously knew all about Fullgraff and his work and both companies and Fullgraff himself know this very clearly. Again, it very much reads as a formality instead of a sincere letter.

They were bound into books, sometimes with string similar to the 1800's albums.

Here's a not so great video showing one in a bit of detail.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZfLR3rf85I

Part 2
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kkFAlTW--Yg

I'm not sure why there would be tearing at the alignment marks. Maybe if they were folding it up there to check something on the layout? But that's just a guess, and probably not a good guess.

The discussion involving the T218's reminded me of this newspaper clip that I posted here awhile back would this have been T218's or could it have been some other issue? It was in a February 11 1911 newspaper.

[IMG]https://photos.imageevent.com/patric...ale/img024.jpg[/IMG]

When they're doing something for an existing company, of course the customer would handle copyrights.

I think what ALC was doing was producing art and names speculatively, maybe to keep the art department going between jobs or as a sales ploy.

If a company wants a new brand, and you can supply the branding images and name instantly because it's already made that's a big plus compared to ATC or anyone else having to have their own people doing the work.

Plus ALC would make the required masters for the packaging and be able to provide those materials very quickly.

If that's the case, and a lot of the cards went through Brett... Oh the stuff that may have been lost! Not only records about the card sets up to the fire, but unreleased material, possibly including proofs or art for speculative backs for brands that ultimately didn't go with baseball or other subjects.

Interesting, it’s not T218, E229, T224, T230. None of these have a Robert Williamson in the checklist, or a person in it close to that. I don’t know what cigarette card this could be…

Prototypes, proofs, cards and whole sets in design stages. Fullgraffs testimony indicates a lot of material was burned up and the bookkeeping departments records lost. It almost hurts to think about the possibilities!

Oh, and just looking at that patent summary, it's for a stand up cardboard display where the sides fold back or forward so it can stand up. AND the back portion can be folded so it displays at an angle.

The full text here.
https://patents.google.com/patent/US.../en?oq=1600557

It's actually kind of sad I remember doing some research on it and couldn't find anything on a Robert Williamson in any Tobacco sets. I thought maybe it was a card that looked like her brother and she was hoping it was him maybe R.P. Williams

If she hasn’t seen him in 35 years in 1911, it must be someone older than most of the athletes in T218, which is really a collection of the top track athletes in America in 1908. Williams was a talented sprinter of the 1910 period. Williams is never referred to as Williamson as far as I’ve ever seen. He also never is referred to by his first name though, it’s always R.P, and he is one of the more obscure runners in the issue. I don’t think this is our man, but I could be wrong.

Makes sense to me Greg, I don't know the set so I was only going off the checklist I thought because she said it was an older photo maybe ther were some athletes that were older when the cards came out like the T220 Donovan.

Posted in the pick up thread, but this belongs here for the record. McAuliffe probably comes from the same period of pre-production as the sheets. Whether it was machine cut or handcut originally is impossible to tell for sure at this remove and with so much edge damage (I don't think the originally cut edges are still present on the card anymore), but it was probably handcut.

It matches perfectly the cards on the sheet, blank back, missing the layer of silver. This card presumably does not come from the same source as the sheets, as it's been in the hobby for years before them and has seen a lot more abuse. If it was from these sheets, they can't have been together in many decades.

The most interesting part to me is the color. Even with all the damage and abuse, it is a much bolder printing than the issued cards, which are usually pretty bolded already. I mentioned this earlier about the sheets, but wasn't sure if it was because 1) they'd been presumably stored somewhere dark for a century and hadn't been exposed much and all cards originally were brighter or 2) the proofs had more color to them. Seems that it is definitely 2.

So the rest of them are out, though I'm late to the party. Apparently the buyer of the Moore and Beecher's didn't pay or was a shill bidder (the utter incompetency of the seller would indicate they couldn't figure out how to shill bid...).

They were sold on May 5 through Weiss, and poorly listed. This is a terrible choice by the seller, not the kind of place for a niche item like these. The people who saw them got steals.

The Jas. J. Corbett went for $400, one fourth the value of the last sale of a single Corbett card. The Dempsey sold for the most of them all at $500. The rest did $200-$340.

In addition to those that had appeared before, Erne, Choynski, Randall, Jas J. Corbett and Coburn appeared.

I bought from one of the winners who was kind enough to flip them my way and now have 20 of the 23 in hand. Ryan and McAuliffe apparently were not in the find at all. One of these 2 cards is almost certainly the bottom left corner panel. Interesting that the only stand-alone proof card known is a McAuliffe. Unlikely it came from the same original source though, as that one was sold competently.

I've gone over the images and am building another work-up of which cards go where. With 20 in hand and Choynski being easy to place, we might be able to do most of it now. I'm going to take the 5 I got in hand today and compare them to what I have worked up before posting an image. Hopefully we can learn something from the final arrangement.

Perhaps the most impressive part of this whole discovery is the absolute stupidity of the seller, an antiques dealer they were consigned too. He listed them as old reprints with no helpful keywords, didn't even ID the set, and sold the best one and the bulk of them for almost nothing. He pulled Carney, Mccoy and Dempsey from eBay after it finally became apparent that he had something. The Dempsey was over $2,300 with like 4 days left on eBay when he yanked it. Then he had it poorly listed in an auction house that this is not a fit for at all, and sold it for $500. He got absolutely robbed on the Corbett, even after he must have figured out he got robbed on the Donovan. I don't see a problem with finding a good deal, but this amount of stacking terrible choices by a professional dealer who should no so much better makes me feel bad for whoever it was that originally found these and brought them to him. They are boxing, it's not like finding a Wagner or retirement, but they lost thousands and thousands of dollars by the sheer incompetence of the professional they brought them too. Just 5 minutes of research and a drop of common sense would have prevented that.

Dealer? Yes. Professional? Not so much, apparently.

These sorts of obscure item screw-ups are not uncommon and are at times made by big-time dealers who should know better. One that comes to mind was an utterly stupid set of BINs on 1961 Bell Brand Lakers cards by a dealer big enough to know better. I know several basketball collectors who would have paid 10X his BINs without even blinking. I asked him WTF and his excuse was that he didn't know how to price them. If so, run a damn auction.

But I digress...

Looking forward to seeing the composite. But don't forget that they might be more than one sheet, if the pieces do not seem to work out as a single sheet.

I've got my layout, first though, here are the 3 pieces of extant evidence I do not have in hand and do not posses. Choyinski at least is very obvious to place. Randall was certainly placed on the sheet horizontally, so that he appears sideways to the rest of the cards.

It's definitely easier to piece together with stuff in hand. I redid this all with the aid of another collector, and a former-card collector with better eyes than I have for identifying fits and small marks on the blank reverses (thanks Dad!).

Many of the backs have small marks, stains and abrasions that flow together. Many of the cards have damage (usually small) crossing form one panel into another. This sheet was clearly not cut up right away, almost all of the damage to the panels certainly happened before it was separated. I am starting with the 20 I have in hand and can examine closely.

Working from right to left, because that's how the evidence flows best as a narrative, though I didn't construct them all in order. Columns and rows are numbered by the panel, there are actually 10 rows and 20 columns of course.

COLUMN 5
1) Jordan is obviously the top right corner.

2) Beneath him is Pal Moore, a crease and other indicators obviously connect them.

3) Same as 2, Gans is obviously below Moore, 100%, due to damage between the bottom of Moore and top of Gans

4) Dempsey I have placed due to some marks on the back and the fit of the cut.

COLUMN 4
Column 4 is cut slightly different from the rest, the cutter appears to have cut horizontal instead of vertical first against column 3.

1) Burke goes next to Jordan, I had this wrong in my initial mockup. the cut, the lining up of the frames, a mark on the back, and the water stain or whatever it is streaking across the top fit perfect. Confident here now.

2-3) Young Corbett and Tug Wilson are placed by their cuts, and thus less precise. They are unfortunately very clean panels. They fit against all 4 of their bordering panels correctly, and nothing else fits in these slots. ~85% confident on these.

4) McCoy fits above Carney, and there are some back markers that strongly indicate its placing here.

5) Carney fits perfect below McCoy and has the back marker. The creasing at bottom and other wear marks place it to the right of McGovern.

COLUMN 3
1) Erne adjacent to Burke, the damage at the top and the cut flow perfecly between the two.

2-3) Driscoll and Beecher's panels are, like column 4, placed by their cuts. They fit perfectly in these spots against all 4 border panels and do not fit in any other slot. I would again consider this less than perfectly ideal, but solid enough to state that they go here.

4) Goldman fits here based on some small back markers connecting it to the card at left and bottom of him.

5) McGovern, from the back marks, and it's position in row 5. 100%

COLUMN 2
1) I at first thought Frayne might be the upper left corner, but there is a small red mark at top connecting to Erne, and the cut is absolutely perfect between the two. That the panels were not handled much and did not get much wear after cutting makes this a lot easier.

2) Jackson is placed by his cut against the 3 for sure border panels

3) Lavigne fits above Donovan, due a back mark and the cutting

4) Donovan is placed by small back marks connecting it with Lavigne and Goldman

5) Edwards is cut perfect against Donovan. The bottom damage makes it plain and evident he is to the left of McGovern.

COLUMN 1
Coburn is placed by cut against Lavigne, but primarily the very clear and obvious huge rip that places him to the left of Lavigne.

This leaves us 3 cards to place and 2 that do not exist (McAuliffe and Ryan).

1) Choyinski clearly is below Coburn, and below and to the left of Lavigne. That rip running from the bottom left panel (non-existent now) ran up through Choyinski, through Coburn's corner, and into Lavigne's panel. Choyinski has the white border at left, telling us some of the far left column's cards had the white trimmed off and some did not.

2) The bottom left panel has to be heavily damaged, as the Choyinski makes clear. It clearly is not Randall or Jas. J. Corbett in this slot.

3) Nothing proves conclusively Randall or Corbett cannot be the bottom right corner card. There cuts do not seem to quite match the Carney, using the Carney in hand and the highest resolution photos I have of Randall and J Corbett.

4) However, the right of Randall's panel (the top of the image) seems to fit into the rather poor cut on the left edge of Peter Jackson. Out of the 3 options, I think this one clearly fits the best here.

5) Same with Corbett, it ain't solid when I'm comparing a scan of a fairly clean sheet with an edge I have in hand. He seems to fit well with the dimensions of the Randall being below him, and against the less than perfect cut of Frayne. He doesn't seem to fit quite right with Jackson, or Randall above him, or with Carney to his left.

So I'm not 100% on Corbett and Randall, but I'm pretty sure. I hope the owners do not cut them up and destroy any chance we will one day be certain.

That leaves us the two bottom corners as Ryan and McAuliffe, but of course there is no way to deduce which was which. Unless we get a miscut showing a card from print rows 8 or 9 of Choyinski/Dempsey/Ryan/McAuliffe angled the right way, we will presumably never know.

I do have a single 'proof' card of McAuliffe, heavily worn. It is the only single proof card known to the hobby. Whether it came from this proof sheet or a partially completed sheet during production is a mystery.

I have added Choyinski and Randall visually with cards, Corbett with my iPad (I don't have 8 Jas. J. Corbett's to array :(), and Ryan/McAuliffe adjacent in their mystery spots.

wow
 

wow :-)

SALIVATING....

I finally found something else on Fullgraff and tobacco. Frank G. Fullgraff, as it turns out, has a patent to his name, for an illuminated advertising display sign that folds ("Cigars" in the image example). Filed in 1923, granted in 1927. His attorney was an 'Arthur L. Kent', I believe it says, who does not appear to be his counsel in his lawsuit a decade before.

The first image is from it's section in the Official Gazette of the United States Patent Office 356, page 476, and the second the actual patent. Apparently he had some competency with electronics as well as his many other interests.

And, just linking the side research from last month into the ledger and Turkey Red that stemmed from this so everything can be traced from one place: https://www.net54baseball.com/showthread.php?t=309711

Not sure I saw this thread before with them all laid out like that in sheet form. Still blows my mind these ever came up for sale.

Congrats again. :eek:

It amazes me how much stuff just disappears for a century or more. All our cards had no real value for most of their life, but just sitting there and never getting cleaned out seems a miracle. I don’t know anyone who hasn’t cleaned out their attic in the last hundred years. The Donovan at all was only a hypothetical card until 2006, 96 years after production. Now we have at least 12 known from just the last 16 years. Surely there is plenty more still out there to find. I’m glad it works this way, never know when we’ll next find something awesome and new that helps fill in the mysteries. The hobby would not be so fun if there wasn’t that element of the unknown out there. One of the big joys of vintage collecting as opposed to modern, in my book, is this element.

with a 5 x 5 layout I wonder why Donovan and Corbett are so hard to find? I know with the 1948 Leaf set, the sheets are 7 x 7, so something replaced the Graziano as the 49th subject. Since there are no replacements for those two cards (it is a straight 25 card set), I wonder if there are any DPs?

I strongly suspect the answer is: no DP's. Using my own collection (I have too many of these), POP reports, and unique raw examples I have tracked by the image, I don't think there are any DP's. Everything comes out within the regular range of norms for sets with equal production. I had assumed that DP'ing was likely originally because it would be the easiest way to deal with having to remove 2 subjects from this sheet while being resource efficient, but it seems this didn't happen. I was fairly surprised.

Its possible these 16 slots were replaced in a more complicated way. Instead of, say, taking Jack Burke's panel and DP'ing it in Donovan's place as well as it's own original slot, they might have copied 2 copies of 4 different cards, or 1 copy of 8 different, creating a population disparity but not one big enough to really track or demonstrate or veer outside of the norms we see for known 1:1 printed sets.

It might be that they just printed these slots and cut them out before packing. Or the slots were simply left blank. It also may be part of why there are silver and white borders. Wave printing of 25 appears to have been a norm; series not all done and distributed at once. It may be that the silver series was not intended to only get the first wave (the lack of factory 30 is odd and also demonstrates an incomplete run), but with the complications with these two cards (whatever those were; earlier we found op-eds by Donovan harshly denouncing smoking, but he was also personally known by Fullgraff) and the added expense, they hit pause, ditched the border, fixed the Donovan and Coburn cards and did whatever was going on with Corbett, and started printing wave 1 again (with, I think the evidence suggests, a batch of 649 backs first [Donovan yellow sky, Coburn blue man, etc.], then 649's and 30's at about the same time in multiple runs), and then wave 2 featuring an aesthetic redesign of the art style for the single fighter cards to complete the series. The ATC ledger and clean printing of the Tolstoi's both indicate Tolstoi production was at a remove from the Mecca runs. Dixie Queen being before or after Tolstoi, but certainly after Mecca began for the same reasons that none of the defects in early Mecca printing are found in the DQ's. I had thought DQ's were probably a reprint like T213-2 and -3, but the Fullgraff notebook seems to indicate they weren't.

That these sheets and their project managers notebook appeared from unknown but clearly different sources at the same time over a century later is another oddity. Whoever consigned Fullgraff's personal ledger may have other material of knowledge value of his.

While the T220 sheet being more complete and the backstamp on it has led to fleshing out a lot of what was going on in 1910, these track fragments may end up leading somewhere too. In the general narrative that is repeated, the ATC and AL worked together on the cards, with the ATC as the dominant partner and AL as the contracted printer. I think that a lot of what we have found has the lithographers controlling a lot of the ATC's operations, instead. The E229 fragments clearly come from the same origin as the T220 sheet, though who exactly this was and how they got them is a mystery. Being from the same source and being proof sheets (The T220 is a pre-production proof sheet, not just a sheet, beyond any reasonable doubt while this one most likely is) would suggest, though not conclusively prove, that the items are from the same printing shop. The checklist has a lot in common with the track athletes under contract with the ATC products. It raises the possibility that the

Here's 3 more sheets that the purchaser from the second round of auctions was kind enough to arrange a deal for. I suspect a lot more of this sheet is just missing and did not survive at all, compared to the T220 sheet. The bottom panel is actually in two pieces, connected only by the back tape.

I still cannot discern if this is an E229 or a D353 sheet, or tell which set came first, or if both sets were issued at the same time. D353 advertises that a card was given "with" (not "in", and the card's don't typically betray signs of having been stuffed in with bread) Koester's Honey Bread "for month of May" with no year specified. May 1910 or May 1911 would be most likely. These issues and T218 are really more a look at the big stars of 1908 than anything, and the checklist does not really help the dating.

And here's a reconstruction of the pieces that fit together touching, with gaps left between segments that don't connect. It's possible it's not all from one sheet. It does seem likely rows repeated 5 cards in a pattern, but where those patterns are placed seems random.

off topic...
 

but since Adam mentioned this card....

amazing sheets btw..

Back to the research front, I think I have found some more relating to T220 here while digging through old copies of the United States Tobacco Journal.

J.B. Bevill is listed in the January 5, 1910 issue as the man "who will have charge of the Moguls and Helmars, and will have as assistants S.R. Calish... G.C. McConnell, J.E White and J. Higgins. This article also notes some other job switches in the ATC and department pairings.

The June 8th issue has Bevill being sent to New York. Bevill "who had charge of the cigarette department of the 'A. T.' Co. in Boston is now in New York and has been succeeded by Mr. Gay". A transfer to New York almost always means a promotion within the ATC.

J.B. Bevill is listed as being in Boston "visiting the jobbers" in the July 2, 1910 issue. This phrase seems to be used to mean the low-level employees of the ATC, but at others times is used to also denote small store buyers.

Bevill is listed in the September 24, 1910 edition as the "manager of the Mecca and Tolstoi cigarette department of the American Tobacco Co." and coming to Chicago on the way home from a "western trip". So Mecca and Tolstoi were a singular department, which is new information. They issued T218 and T220 together, and more sets singly without both brands being involved. The date on the back of the T220 sheet is September 13, 1910, just days before this issue. Bevill is probably the person at the ATC who would have given final sign off to actually issue the cards with these brands (Hassan was not issued at the same time as Mecca) and send to the factories for packing; the man who Fullgraff probably passed overall responsibility too after the lithographers had printed the cards.

The November 19, 1910 issue has Bevill temporarily in Chicago now, "devoting his time and active services to a two weeks selling campaign in the interest of the Lenox brand, which he hopes to popularize in the local market.... the sale in the past has been confined to a very limited territory in this city." Possibly interesting to T206 guys, not sure if Chicago localization is new. ATC jobs seem to have been more like guidelines than how we think of job responsibilities today usually, employees seem to switch positions and go off on side projects all the time and it is treated as normal.

Bevill stayed with the ATC after the feds busted up their operation. In 1919 he was still an employee and visitng Boston worksites according to the March 5, 1919 edition of the Tobacco Record. He was still there as a sales manager in 1921, according to some FTC documents. In 1926 a J.B. Bevill of Boston (which seems to have been the tobacco Bevill's original home) a corn and eczema lotion company. In 1914 a J.B. Bevill in New York, where we last know he was living, is identified as having "plumbing and gas works" installed in his "handsome new residence and garage" at Anderson and Prospect avenues in the Domestic Engineering Journal. Nobody ever gives his Christian name.

For the immense expense and scope of the card project as a primary form of advertising for the monopoly, it is somewhat surprising that the cards almost never actually appear in the industry journals as even a footnote mention.

In October, 1910 the United States Tobacco Journal reports demand has exceeded supply and the Mecca cigarettes have shortages. This is right about the time I would expect the cards to be starting to enter the market.

It is purely speculative, but this rather than cost may have been the reason the silver borders were quickly abandoned, if it was taking too long to get the extra fancy work done on the cards and there was an active shortage in the market, the need for more expensive premiums clearly wasn't there and slowing down distribution wouldn't be advisable.

Also came across this in an article from July 9, 1910 about the film of the Jeffries-Johnson fight (owned by AL) being banned in the city of San Francisco. Presumably the gentlemen Hess, S.F. cigar men, have connection to the S.F. Hess business that issued the west coast N332 boxers.

While Knapp's American Lithography held the film rights, as Pat discovered, the ATC apparently held "exclusive advertising privileges" to the event for the tobacco industry. Johnson signed a late contract and was almost certainly super printed in a weird printing setup for T218 and T9 in the lead up to the fight and its immediate aftermath. Presumably that contract was among the bundle of deals made by the Jeffries and Johnson camps with the lithographers and tobacco monopoly. Jeffries had an earlier, normal schedule contract.

The Corbett panel appeared on eBay, listed as a T220 this time but not mentioning silver or that the Corbett is a special card. Bids got cancelled and the panel relisted for $15,000 or best offer, and an offer was taken immediately. Somebody talked him into ending it early. Seller made a hell of a profit on that flip from the tiny price paid originally in the terribly listed toy auction, but still left some money on the table here.

Ya' gotta wonder if that becomes a Graziano type card in the hobby.

Not to give anybody any ideas, but I'd guess there's a good chance that gets chopped up into 8 cards...especially if somebody convinces a TPG company to put them in slabs.

That’s one of the less selfish reasons I’ve been trying to gather them all up. I’d hate to see these get destroyed and cut up for slabs, there’s no putting them back together. Odds are over 50% it will be chopped, I figure. Many have advised me to chop up the Donovan because it will be worth more in a maimed state.

Yeah, sorry to say, it's likely worth a lot more if there's 8 of them, and it's attainable for more then 1 person.

If there's 8, it's a chase card. 1 sheet makes it an interesting (but still expensive) novelty. More for 10 years from now, when they've all gone their separate ways, then for the immediate future, when 8 of the same card being offered at once is considered flooding the market in the boxing hobby.

I was rooting for you to eventually get it and keep it intact.

Chopping them would be a hell of a risk. They are blank-backed so the best they will grade is "A". Are there really enough collectors who would pay enough for a scrap to make it worthwhile?

FWIW, the eBay Terapeak tool shows the actual sale price as $5,000.

I think there’s enough, I’ve gotten more unsolicited offers for a cut proof card from it than the full sheet panel (which of course I have turned down; the 20 of the 23 extant panels I have will not be cut up). A number of people just don’t want anything not residing in a slab. It ‘helps’ that most tobacco guys are sitting at 23 cards. I think the money is greater in destroying the panel, sadly, even though this is one of the lower grade panels with a number of small holes in it.

To flip a profit off $5,000, they would need to sell Corbett proofs for more than $625 each. That’s easy. I don’t see how a Corbett or Donovan will go under a K or 2 minimum these days (I wish they would!). I paid over $625 for the beat silverless blank back card of a common that was known before this find. I’ve been offering far more than that for Donovan’s and Corbett’s without a bite.

I didn’t know you could see the actual accepted offer. If he took $5,000, he cancelled bids way above that and left between a little and a ton on the table depending how many would go there. If the winner is here, call me if you want to double your money right away lol.

That's what the eBay tool showed; I have no idea if it is accurate.

Found some more after reading Alpheus Greer/Marshall Stillman's 1918 biography of Donovan "Mike Donovan: The Making of A Man" which contains a chapter printing the comments of Donovan's many students about him (always full of praise, the man was either a Saint or these are awfully biased). Mr. E.W. Kearney reported:

"Abstaining from, I may say abhorring, both liquor and tobacco, he was never afraid to declare his principles in that direction, and I know he exerted great influence over many young men in causing them to do likewise. In short, he was a wonderful power for good, apart from his professional boxing capacity." (page 239).

Donovan is also quoted in the 1923 book "The Church and Tobacco" published by the "No-Tobacco Army" in its section of quotes form famous people. For those who believe Connie Mack's distaste of tobacco relates to Eddie Plank's T206 card, he is quoted right after Donovan's "A boy who smokes can never hope to succeed in any line of endeavor" (121). This quote also appears in other anti-tobacco works.

The 1917 Practical Education repeats an extended version of this Donovan quote, alongside assaults on smoking (The "little white slaver") from Frank Baker, Hughie Jennings, Walter Johnson, Clark Griffith, Ty Cobb, Connie Mack, and Red Dooin (pages 480-482). All but Mack sure didn't seen to have an issue with signing image rights away for big tobacco, and Cobb's hypocrisy in the harshness of his comments considering that he had his own brand is just absolutely astounding.

Several variations of Donovan's op-ed that I originally sourced in Good Health were published in other works for a number of years in the early 20th century. He is an oft-cited criticizer of smoking from the people very upset by the practice.

Greer's book makes frequent reference to Donovan's social life in the NYAC, the club for which Fullgraff served on a number of committees and was an active member of its social affairs. I highly doubt I will ever find a primary source document saying it to prove it beyond doubt, but Donovan's SP'ing and then reinstating into the set (with 2 cards even after reinsertion) seems best explained and most likely to be a combination of his distaste for tobacco and his probable friendship (at minimum, a club acquaintance) with the man making those cards.

I am not surprised there is a probable reason for the strange rarity (pulled, and put back again is not the normal pattern), but I am still surprised that the sheet layout is clearly not Donovan and Corbett being together on the sheet, but far apart. Deductively there is almost certainly a separate reason that Corbett was very short printed, and then reinstated also. Corbett I can find almost nothing relating to tobacco at all. Late in life he even had a radio show dedicated to health, but he never mentioned tobacco at all (Fields, "James J. Corbett", page 229).

It's interesting that Dooin is mentioned as being anti-tobacco as he is probably the most prominent of all the subjects in the early ads for T206's. He's at the front of a Sporting life ad and he's on the same Hindu ad twice.

Attachment 555481

Attachment 555482

Here's the full quote from Red Dooin they published (page 482). Also attaching the Cobb, which is the longest and the most striking in its hypocrisy as Cobb clearly was a tobacco paid man.

It's possible some of these guys did not actually approve their images for the cards. We only have 2 permission letters, one of which says it's for cigarette cards and the other of which says nothing about tobacco at all. Its very possible some of these guys signed without ever knowing it was for tobacco advertising. Also possible some didn't sign at all. The Hyland letter indicates they were diligent about following the law, but I'm not clear on who the NY state law entirely covers or if the courts ever really got into such things with people who resided and worked in other states but came to NY sometimes. Players from other states might not have required one, Hyland indicates they probably sought permission from those in the National and American leagues who would have come to NY with some frequency, but maybe they didn't always do this and it's very possible they didn't do it for distant minor leagues that didn't have New York teams or players.

The idea that someone must keep their business dealings in line with what they believe is right is a fairly new concept.

Very interesting Greg, thanks for sharing that.

Just confirming the sheet layout. Corbett and Randall/Belasco were the most tenuous placements as I had to eyeball the cut of the edges from less than perfect photographs and guesstimate where they belonged.

The guesstimate was correct. The Randall/Belasco is indeed above Coburn, fitting in perfectly in it's cut against both him and Jackson. Randall's back is more toned than the others - I suspect it was the one stored on top, upside down. We will probably never know the full backstory of who had these and brought them to the antiques dealer who sold them for pennies (Twice! The second time after being made aware of what they had), but it seems these sat untouched for a century in the NY area.

Corbett fit's in perfectly with Frayne. It is the only top edge panel with the white cut off, but most of the left side cards have their border trimmed off (only Choyinski has the sheet's left border, confirming for us that that it is indeed 5 panels to a row, 20 cards per row). As we have 23 of the original 25 surviving and only 1 with the corner still present (Jordan), this makes sense. What I took to be small staple or pin holes in the Corbett from the picture turned out not to be holes on close examination; it was just detritus that brushed right off when touched.

In hand, almost every card has differences between it's 8 copies, so that I can match a specific copy of a final production card to which of the 8 slots it came from. Donovan is difficult to do this for, the 8 are all very very similar. McGovern and Driscoll are the easiest. There are noticeable differences in the red on the Corbett's. It would be interesting to see if the surviving Corbett's all track to the same slot or not, but I haven't saved pictures of the ones I've seen, only the Donovan's.

Ryan and McAuliffe evidently have not survived to modernity (the single McAuliffe proof card that exists is almost certainly not from this sheet and source), and must be the lower left and lower right corners, though which is which we probably will never know. Should anyone have a miscut of these cards, a picture would be greatly appreciated.

Attached are the fake news 'holes', the sheet put together as it has been reconstituted today, and then the full layout with the Choyinski's recreated as best as I can, and Ryan/McAuliffe placed one each where they would have gone.

puzzle
 

thas a beautiful thing!

I was on vacation when you posted this Greg and I just read it this morning. Great info on the sheet layout.

Member mkdltn posted this info in 2010 he didn't post often but his posts were informative and well researched. The T220 sheet seems to be the right size for the hoe #5 press one of the two that he suggested were used for the T cards.

Attachment 561422

20 cards across = ~50 inches
10 cards vertical = ~33 inches

Adding in the white borders to the above, that is pretty much exactly what this gentleman postulates as the max size.

A T206 sheet this size would be much larger than most seem to postulate. I would think different size sheets were used for different sets depending on facility and what other printing jobs were going on at that exact time, but there's no reason the small size cards wouldn't be done on large sheets.

Also, got shown these on the non-sports side. These sheets were evidently destroyed and cutup, for 2 of the fragments reside in my collection now.

There is so little ATC uncut card material left to work with here to make deductions from.

Almost all the rest are tiny print color test 'sheets' that are obviously a different size from production runs.