T206 sketches

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Posted By: ty_cobb

Scott Forrest's website has an interesting section
regarding B&W photos that were used for the T206 cards.
But which cards are more likely to have been artist's
drawings rather than a photographic image?

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Posted By: runscott

It may never be answered. Eric Angyle just sent me the photo that the Flick card was made from. By coincidence, he located it just after I posted about the card possibly being a line drawing. The strange look to Flick's eyes is because the original photo had a shadow over the upper part of his face, obscuring the eyes. I have about 20 additional photos/cards that I haven't added to the site due to lack of time.

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Posted By: Julie Vognar

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Posted By: Hankron

I have only one T206 (Harry Pattee) to my name, but a close examination of the cards would likely determine which cards were reproductions of photographs and which, if any, were reproductions of sketches. Realize that a card could have been made from a sketch based on a photogrpah, or based on a artisticly enhansed photograph (perhaps including an artist drawing and coloring over the photograph). Casually looking at some of the action shots, it seems that some of the cards were made from sketches or significantly embellished photographs. Even the cards obviously made from photographs (usually the portraits) were likely altered and otherwise embelished by the artist or printer before reproduction. Even with the 1950s or 60s Topps cards, the original photographs used were often altered and embellished. The player pictures on the 1957 Topps Football cards, as an example, were made from flexichromes. Flexichrome was a photograph that was handcolored with gaudy colors.