Quote:
Originally Posted by T206Collector
Maybe lining up all of the cards on the sheet to make sure they were all centered.
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That's it.
The cross lines are to help lay out the transfers onto the plate. There would be a network of either lines or dots that would define the grid, then the individual transfers would be transferred to the plate.
So the marks help get each one lined up just right, and since they're on all the colors it also helps making sure all the plates line up right with each other.
After the plate is laid out they should be erased, but obviously that didn't always happen. I'm not sure if they'd just let the leftover marks go, or if they would have erased them after a bit of use.
A lot of cards have the remnants of the lines as little segments that cross the middle of the side. of the image. I've been looking at Magies, and the pattern of the leftover lines is different with around 8-9 different. And there's plenty of back flaws that always match the pattern of alignment marks.
The drawn in border is a correction of an over zealous erasing. There's probably others, there are also some uncorrected gaps.
Steve B