My guess is that American Litho started cutting the AB's thinner in anticipation of the narrower AB packs. It's my understanding that the
narrower (8-cigarette) American Beauty packs were to be introduced sometime in 1911.
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The widths of the AB cards vary all over the place. This Davy Jones is the "fattest" of my AB cards (it is exactly the width of a normal T206 card).
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v.................... 1 7/16" ......................v
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While AB 460 cards consistently tend to be the narrowest of the cards in the three American Beauty series......
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TED Z
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