I do think that Plank was later, but also that the 12 plus Magie were earlier.
The timing of the ads does add a bit of doubt though. And a couple specific questions.
1) What were the advertising deadlines for sporting life. It may be in the magazine somewhere. It's conceivable that the ad copy had to be in more than a month before the publication date. Making the submission of the Wagner ad pretty close to or before the start of the promotion.
2) Being a weekly, the printing lead time would have been short for Sporting life, what was that lead time. In other words were they reporting on stuff that happened the week before the cover date, or stuff perhaps 2 weeks before since they needed printing and distribution time to get it together and on the newsstands.
If they were doing the week immediately prior to the publication date as SI does now that's very impressive given the technology of the day.
The timing I think could work is that the 12 cards (not including Plank but including Magie) went to press, fronts were printed for the SC press run, but partway in and while backs were being printed the Wagner had to be pulled. Production stopped while a new plate was made, and the second plate containing Magie went to press. The error was found and for some reason they decided to correct it. And that plate was pulled.
Both plates were wiped clear (Actually sets of stones, all 6+ for Wagner and maybe only the brown for Magie.) And laid out with the same subjects but with Brown Cubs replacing both errors.
Then being behind in production both plates were sent to press producing fronts which were used for only SC Piedmont and Hindu.
That timeline works for that set of cards based on how dificult each card is, the Brown is pretty easy and the rest of the group isn't while all but Wagner and Magie are roughly equal.
I'm thinking Soverign was printed after Hindu, as there are no soverign 150s that don't also have a 350 back available. (Unless the superset spreadsheet is misleading me again, in which case I'll have to do some serious remodeling of it since I find it easier to see patterns that way)
I can say that at least for bicycle parts advertising things that are either unavailable to the public or not in production yet was common. I wanted a particular set of pedals for about a year before the shop told me that while they were the main feature of a full page ad the company had not produced any. Yes, they advertised an unavailble product for a year or more. Silly but true. And as far as I can figure out they were never produced for that brand although they were made and sold by a european brand.
Steve B
Quote:
Originally Posted by wonkaticket
Scott,
Tim says exactly what I’ve been saying perhaps better. It’s all about timing and availability.
Look at the timeline that Ted is saying.
If those 12 players above were first to be printed with any of the three brands Piedmont, Sweet Caporal or Sovereign you would see more of Wagner & Plank with potentially all three brands but at the very least more of them with Sweet Caporal. They wouldn’t be missing and so absent.
Generally your first production is one of your bigger productions as it’s your launch, then subsequent productions could be bigger or smaller depending demand and sell thru. Since we can narrow down Plank and Wagner to only factory dist cards with the Sweet Caporal brand let’s focus on that for now.
If they did run as Ted says Plank and Wagner in the first 12 then for whatever reason Wagner was pulled effecting Plank how did it not affect the other 10 above with Sweet Caporal to some degree as well? The fact is it didn’t those other 12 are even found with the other brands.
If Plank was affected by the pull of Wagner and there was a cease & deist etc. from Plank to the ATC how come he shows up in the 350 series? I have even done some numbers of my own since mid 1999 about 50 individual Planks have come to sale or been publicly offered of which only about 12 or so have been 150 series cards. Showing roughly at glance that perhaps the 150’s are scarcer of Plank which has been the idea with many collectors for some time. This would suggest IMO that Plank was added towards the tail end of the 150 runs and carried over into the 350 before going away for whatever reason. If Plank was run in the spring of 1909 as Ted says then not pulled till 1910 that’s one long legal battle to have your card pulled or be affected by Wagner your sheet mate.
None of us are going to have the exact answer but saying Wagner & Plank were among the first 12 cards ever printed and looking at their numbers today compared with other 150 series cards just doesn’t add up IMO.
In regards to advertising in advance yes that does happen Scott but not so much with consumables maybe with the Wii or new iPhone but on household cleaners and smokes…not as much IMO.
In the end I wish Ted was right then we all could afford to get a nice Wagner & Plank as they would have printed quite a few of them in that very first flick of the switch at the factory before yanking them for whatever historical reason.
John
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