Some of the mysteries and myths surrounding the most famous card in the hobby.

[Pat R]

We will never know all the truth's about the card but some of the claims defy what we do know about the printing starting with the first claim that the card originated from a sheet that Alan Ray's father supposedly purchased at a Florida flea market. We now know without a doubt that there were several vertical rows of each subject on a sheet in every series printed in the set so where are all the other Wagner's that would have been on that sheet?

What I feel is another big myth is that Plank was also on that sheet with Wagner and it is claimed that the Conlon Plank came from that sheet. So like the Wagner where are all the other Plank's from that sheet and to a greater degree the back numbers on the two cards indicate that there is very little chance that Plank and Wagner were ever on a T206 sheet together.

Her are the numbers on the Wagner's and the 150 series Planks in the t206resource galleries
img184.jpg

The only good evidence we have of previous claims about the card is Mastro admitting in court that he trimmed the sides of the Wagner.

We really know very little about the most famous and talked about card in the hobby. There are no really good pictures or scans of the card that I know of and very little talk about it from any of previous owners.

A member asked me to add the 350's for comparison to my post which is simple enough since Wagner wasn't printed with 350 backs and Plank is only confirmed with SC350/30.

[jggames]

Here is a video of Mastro talking about the Wagner (and his trim) and the stack of other cards that were supposedly cut from the same sheet.

https://youtu.be/CRdjnVcNNn0?t=509

[Leon]

I think I have seen that video before, but it was really interesting again, on a few fronts. The comments below, at the end, are telling too.

I had lunch with the person who graded the card first, recently, as mentioned before. He said, at the time, there was no evidence to him that the card had been altered. It looked like an almost perfect card and he gave it the grade it should have received.

Originally Posted by jggames

Here is a video of Mastro talking about the Wagner (and his trim) and the stack of other cards that were supposedly cut from the same sheet.

https://youtu.be/CRdjnVcNNn0?t=509

[G1911]

I think point 2 is the big problem. I think it’s entirely possible there was only one Wagner, presumably it was not a complete sheet but a sheet fragment. We know many subjects in multiple sets didn’t repeat all the way down a column. It’s feasible that the Wagner was on the top row of the fragment, if the fragment existed and was the origin.

I doubt Plank was on the same sheet as the Wagner. They may have both come from the same origin, perhaps a handful of strips?

While I’m against sheet or strip destruction entirely, it’s really a shame there appears to be no record of this find or whatever it was for educational purposes, no photograph that actually exists of what it was before cutting. We have millions of cards from this 1909-1912 card project, but a tiny handful of uncut items. I’ve been trying to track down evidence of every little scrap of uncut material from the T cards known and turned up almost nothing that people can provide any reasonable evidence for the existence of.

[Leon]

As for strips of T cards, I am not sure if you are talking only T206 but there have been some strips known. I used to own these below. I think there are quite a few out there in collections, but not shown often.

Originally Posted by G1911

I think point 2 is the big problem. I think it’s entirely possible there was only one Wagner, presumably it was not a complete sheet but a sheet fragment. We know many subjects in multiple sets didn’t repeat all the way down a column. It’s feasible that the Wagner was on the top row of the fragment, if the fragment existed and was the origin.

I doubt Plank was on the same sheet as the Wagner. They may have both come from the same origin, perhaps a handful of strips?

While I’m against sheet or strip destruction entirely, it’s really a shame there appears to be no record of this find or whatever it was for educational purposes, no photograph that actually exists of what it was before cutting. We have millions of cards from this 1909-1912 card project, but a tiny handful of uncut items. I’ve been trying to track down evidence of every little scrap of uncut material from the T cards known and turned up almost nothing that people can provide any reasonable evidence for the existence of.

[G1911]

Originally Posted by Leon

As for strips of T cards, I am not sure if you are talking only T206 but there have been some strips known. I used to own these below. I think there are quite a few out there in collections, but not shown often.

There are a number, “a tiny handful” as I claimed, - but the amount is tiny. There’s some Obaks I believe are a different project from the one credited to American Lithogrpahy and the ATC, though it seems to be much more complicated than that oft stated credit.

There’s 2 T25 strips. There’s the Wagner prototype strip. There’s a T62 proof sheet or two. There’s 92% of a T220-1 sheet. There’s some E229 fragments (I know, E, however I suspect they used the same contracts as the T cards and were a Brett production at the same time as part of the general project). Off the top of head I can’t think of any others that were part of this project, I probably have records of 1 or 2 more in my notebook. I have been told about a number of others, but from hobbyists unable or unwilling to provide a picture or any evidence that it actually exists. I would love to see others, we have and can learn a lot from other sets that were part of this 1909-1912 promotion.

[Aquarian Sports Cards]

Originally Posted by Leon

As for strips of T cards, I am not sure if you are talking only T206 but there have been some strips known. I used to own these below. I think there are quite a few out there in collections, but not shown often.

Top strip is cool. Shame there's a little schmutz on it though...

[Pat R]

Originally Posted by jggames

Here is a video of Mastro talking about the Wagner (and his trim) and the stack of other cards that were supposedly cut from the same sheet.

https://youtu.be/CRdjnVcNNn0?t=509

And that's where some of these hobby myths start, he said "it was obvious all the cards were cut from an uncut sheet maybe one sheet I don't know" and the fact could be that the cards originated from an employee who cut up several sheets and the stack could have already passed through one or more peoples hands.

The best evidence I've seen of a group of cards coming from an uncut sheet are the group of Sweet Caporal 350-460 factory no prints and another group of regular production Sweet Caporal 350-460 that were hand cut from sheets
at some point and sold by the same ebay seller. The no prints I believe came from one or two sheets and the regular prints came from one or two different sheets.

If you look at the groups of the same subjects they have the same registration and the same color shift mis-alignments.

From the no prints notice the registration and the green color shift on the bottom left corner on all of the Pfeister's
Pfeister _1__1.jpg

same thing on these regular print Ford's with the registration and color shift mis-alignment on the bottom border
Ford _1__1.jpg