T206 Artwork Questions
 

Being a newer member I may be asking questions already well known so I apologize in advance. As far a s the artwork aspect for the T206s go, i there any info available on the artists themselves? Are they known by name, are certain cards or groups of cards attributed to specific artists? Is the artwork used painted over the original photographs or is it free hand? Is there is any surviving original artwork? Lastly, regarding the NY Giants cards in the set (wearing sweaters - Bridwell, Crandall, Doyle, McGraw, Murray, Wiltse) what's up with the sweaters looking all strange? Meaning, the top half looks white and then the bottom 1/2 is a different shade and the middle stripe then starts down. Hope these questions aren't too "out there", just always wondered.
Thanks!

funny...i've always wondered about those weird ny giants sweaters too!

there are 2 more Giant sweaters-Doyle and Seymour

Latham and Meyers are close but there are 8 Giant Sweater portraits.

There is some info around on the artists-I will se what I can dig up.

I have wondered if the sweaters the Giants wore had something to do with Matty endorcing the Blauvelt Sweaters. D.

Tony

Some of the images on the T206s were from photographs taken by Carl Horner. (Honus Wagner & Tommie Leach are the first ones to come to mind). As far as the artists, I have no info on that.

David Rudd Cycleback is the person you want to talk to about the photography aspects of the T206s. Maybe he will chime in.

Good questions.

Jantz

A lot of the letters and lines on the jerseys and caps were not in the original photos, and were added on later by the artists or printers. This might explain how things ended up looking odd. As you can see, the 'Pittsburgh' appears on Wagner's jersey in the card but not the original photo.

The portraits were based on photos by Carl Horner, and the T206 portraits are colored ('colorized') Horner images. Many of the other cards look like they would have been based on color sketches or paintings, as they clearly aren't photo realistic. I've never seen original T206 sketches or paintings, but any original non-photo art from before WWI is very rare.

For anyone who has most of the white border tobacco cards, especially if they have not been slabbed, it is quite interesting to lay the cards out on a table. Cards from one team are enough. The Giants or the Cubs work best, there are lots of them.

Arrange the cards alphabetically, but left to right. But lay them out in several rows. Top row for 150 series cards. Middle row for 350s, at the bottom goes the 460s. You might need to have a 4th row in there for assorted's. Then, you can see the progression of the designs, you can see a subjects who had cards in every row (Tinker and McGraw come to mind), and you can see when a player is only in series 150, or only in series 460.

What can be seen is that the cards were issued in similar patterns. For Chicago, the cards with Cubs across the jersey were first, cards with Chicago down the front were last. For the Giants, those sweaters bunch together.

Sorting this way, then opening one's eyes, in an education in itself.

A generation and a half ago, collectors sorted these cards by team, not alphabetically. The number list did not exist. From there appearance, and for many years, these cards were always sorted by team. We lost this with the advent of the set's numbering. We lost seeing the similarity of the cards in the various series.

The visual impact of all of those sweaters next to one another is diminished if the cards are in slabs. They look impressive side by side.

A plug for the old Net54 T206 archives
 

I was once intrigued by the differences in the Matty white cap and dark cap poses from an artistic standpoint. Seemed to me that a different artist was hired to ink each of them. And I really don't understand why Amer Litho would go through the trouble of doing that.

In any event, for T206 collectors that are new to this board, might I recommend a page on my website that has a number of links to the old Net54 board discussions on just about every T206 topic that comes to mind. Surprisingly, I did not have an "artwork" link -- but there are a number of printing mystery/processes links that work just fine.

Just click my website below and then "T206 Threads (Net54)" at the top of the page.

I've also always been intrigued by the T206 artwork.This Izzy card is one of the cards that make me think "how uncomfortable must that've been?"-I sure would like to see the actual photo they used for this card.