Posted By:
David HornishThis thread just jogged my memory-I was contacted a few years ago via e-mail by someone with ATT shipping records for T206 cards (I think it was T206, it was certainly one of the big T sets). I'm searching for printouts of the e-mails or on my AOL archive (which is minimal unfortunately). He had some specific details that were interesting.
While looking for that e-mail though I came across a May 2003 e-mail from Bob Forbes, co-author of American Tobacco Cards. There was a lot of content, some unrelated to T206 but the T206 stuff is worth sharing:
"Fcctory Numbers-were listed on cards from around 1905 (+/- a year or two) to sometime into the early 1930's. I believe this was in response to some kind of Federal Govt mandate....
RE Overprints-based on govt reg theory-the cards were produced at a central location (ATC Trust Premium dept)-backs were printed according to the amount needed at each factory. Due to shifts in production of a brand (many were produced at more than one factory) or oversupply of particular factory backs, some cards were overprinted to change factory numbers. I don't believe any of the factories were involved in printing their own backs-at best this would have been contracted out locally to a printing firm."