Questions about the printing of vintage cards

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Posted By: Andy

If you could ask the printing company of vintage trading cards a question, what would it be? How were cards cut from the sheet? What type of inks were used? What equipment was used in the printing process? etc.

The American Lithograph Co. (they printed the T206's) closed long ago. Topps, the producer of what we call "new" cards has printed cards since 1950. It would be interesting to sit down with someone at Topps and learn how cards are created, or at least how they were created from 1950 through the 1960's.
So, anyway, back to the reason of this post. If you could sit down with the printers, What would be your vintage card printing question?

Andy

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Posted By: Hal Lewis

Why did you allow your son to come into the printing room and steal 40,000 T206 Honus Wagner cards and burn them?

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Posted By: barrysloate

I would want to know who designed the cards, and how they went about picking the players included in the set. Once you've passed that hurdle, production and distribution would be rather standard. Whatever was used in that day probably sufficed. Certainly huge sets like N172 and T206 would be most fascinating.

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Posted By: Scott Forrest

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Posted By: J Levine

What happened to the printing plates for the sets? Were they destroyed, and if not, can I borrow them?

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Posted By: Gilbert Maines

Id like to know which artists were used for each set. Figuring an artist's career can span many decades, it would be interesting to me to find that apparently unconnected sets (such as t206, w516 and goudeys and maybe even '53 topps) used the same artist.

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Posted By: Max Weder

I would ask:

Where's all the original art!!! (my key suspect is Hal...)

While not strictly speaking a printing question, I'd also like to know what the productions costs of the printing was in T206 days, and what the tobacco companies paid for the printing.

Have any printing plates for vintage cards surfaced in the hobby? I have picked up a few generic baseball and other sports images, but I have never seen any used in printing cards.

On the other hand, if someone wants endless copies of the cover of Hockey Heroes of Today and Yesterday (McClelland & Stewart, 1950 or so), I can oblige, providing you wait for the ink to dry.

Max

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Posted By: davidcycleback

I'd just like to see or hear about the entire process-- art to finished card. This applies to T206s, Topps or 2004 SP. Though I'd really like to see the Old Judges being made.