[steve B]

I posted in the past about an idea I had that the sheets while having more than 12 cards on them likely only had 6 different cards to a sheet, at least for the 150 series. There's a group of cards in the 150's that fits a very tight pattern of backs and is only 13 cards.
Ames hands at chest
Brown chicago
Brown cubs on shirt
Burch batting
Donlin fielding
Doyle throwing
Evers cubs on shirt
Magie
Pattee
Pelty
Reulbach glove showing
Schulte front view
Wagner Pitt



3 of these are obvious rarities, while the rest are approximately equal in difficulty but divide somewhat neatly into two groups.

One of thses cards is much easier than the others, Brown Cubs.

I believe these represent two sheets with an unknown number of cards but of only 6 subjects. One originally included Wagner, the other originally included Magie. When those two cards were pulled, the sets of stones or plates were redone with Brown Cubs filling in the spaces Wagner and Magie had been in.

Overall I think the T206 plate layouts are very complex, including special regional groups and uneven distributions of cards on a single sheet. Especially since there are lots of outlying cases that don't readily fit a pattern held by other cards. Like Powers who is the only single card with a 649 overprint but no 350 series backs.

Steve B

Originally Posted by tedzan

Figuring out the sheet arrangement of how American Lithographic (ALC) printed the T206's is not rocket science, if you do the math. Evident is the factor "6" in the make-up
of the various series.......

150 Series = 156 subjects

350 Series = 209 subjects

Super-Prints = 6 subjects

350/460 Series = 57 subjects (initially planned for 66 subjects)

460 Series = 46 subjects (+ two Double-Prints)

So. Lge Series = 48 subjects


Therefore, I contend that ALC formatted 12 cards across their sheet. I say this because research has shown that a 19" wide printing press was used by ALC to print T206's
and T205's. Therefore, a 19" wide sheet of cardboard includes 12 T206 size cards across the sheet. Depending on series configurations, sheets comprising of 36, 48, 60, 72
cards (and perhaps higher multiples of 12) were printed.
As will be illustrated in the next posts in this thread (GOUDEY, BOWMAN & TOPPS), the printing machinery dictates the the sheet configurations. Therefore, if the number of
subjects are less than the number of cards that a complete sheet will accomodate....the standard printing practice is to include Double-Prints (D-P) to fill out that sheet.

Having access to a large T206 survey (15,000+ cards) for quite a number of years, the numbers in this survey suggest to me that the following subjects (with respect their
series) must have been D-P.


150 Series ...... simulated sheet of 36 cards including 34 subjects of which Powers and Matty (white cap) were D-P


.................................................. .................................................. .................................................. ............................. Powers .................. Matty



350 Series

Six Super Prints......thanks to Scot Reader's great research as documented in his book titled "Inside T206".

Furthermore, these 6 subjects were extended into the 460 Series and were D-P on certain sheets.






460 Series

Mgr. Duffy and Russ Ford were Double-Printed to fill out a 48-card sheet that includes the 46 subjects in the 460-Only series.





The 10 subjects noted here that appear to have been Double-Printed (as indicated by their numbers in large T206 surveys) are just a start. Most likely there are more D-P.

Your inputs on this subject matter are appreciated.


TED Z