[Archive]

Posted By: Dave Hornish

To reiterate an idea I have seen on here previously, I think you need to look at the number of subjects per series becasue you will likely never figure out the subject distribution on the sheets, even if you know the array. There must have been a budget for the cards and part of that would mean a finite number to the drawings/paintings that make up the cards. The partial Obak sheet scan I have seen (on the board here somewhere in the past) did not have a rhyme or reason to the duplicate subjects and there's no reason to think T206 did either, other than to allow ATC to package the cards with whatever level of duplication they felt comfortable with. Topps used to do the same thing, double printing certain rows of cards on the press sheets.

For T206 you might have a set number of subjects appearing once or twice per sheet (say on the right side) then you could set up the left side differently, say with the first print Cubs or the cards celebrating the Pirates as Champs being multiple printed in repeating vertical strips. I always thought it possible there was some latitude given to the brands (or at least factories) regarding which subjects they wanted to distribute. Imagine a core group of cards, say 80% of a given series, then the remaining 20% could have been selected from a larger pool of subjects.

Food for thought?

Dave