T206/T205 Sheets

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Posted By: J Levine

Does anyone have any clue as to how many cards were on a standard sheet of T206/5s? Or has this information been lost for the ages. Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks,
Joshua

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Posted By: Ted Zanidakis

Although I have never seen (I don't think anyone else has either) a
complete uncut sheet of T206 cards, my theory is that the T206 cards
could have been printed on 48 - card sheets.

And, I base this on these two factors....the Southern League Series
consists of 48 cards....and the the 460 (only) Series consists of 48
cards. This is too much of a coincidence; therefore, this theory could
merit some discussion. I am still studying Scot Reader's analysis to see
if this applies to other series.

Certainly the 150 Series, which comprises 156 cards is not a number evenly
divisible by 48. However, if certain cards (usually stars) were double-printed
that might do it.

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Posted By: barrysloate

No sheet of either has survived, so the best we can do is speculate. No one knows for sure how they were printed before being cut into individual cards.

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Posted By: J Levine

Ted (and Barry),
First off, thanks...
Ted, I too had the magic # of 48 in mind but that is a complete guess so far. I know there are no existing sheets but I was pretty sure that the printing process was understood and the actual machines used were known. I seem to remember someone talking about the machines once (was it Pete C.?). Anyway...anyone else have any theories out there?

Joshua

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Posted By: Jamie Hull

Well, Joshua, I don't really have a theory, but I'll throw a couple points out.
Any question of the number of cards per T206 sheet staggers under the complication that it appears the vast majority of cards came off of sheets that contained vertical rows of identical cards, hence those not uncommon miscuts showing identical names at the top and bottom of the card. If that was indeed the case, 48 or any other magical number would, unfortunately, seem to be not so magical. One could suppose, say, eight sheets each six cards wide to account for 48, but that's a total guess.
Further, on the Southern Leaguers, not all 48 appear with Hindu backs. The six Texas Leaguers do not, and I believe a handful of others from the other "Southern" leagues do not as well. This was mentioned in a thread a couple months ago -- I did a very quick search but couldn't find it. To me, it would seem unlikely that cards originating from the same sheet would not all appear with the same back possibilities.
Anyway...

Jamie

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Posted By: barrysloate

I was thinking the same thing as Jamie, that you couldn't find all 48 Southern leaguers with Hindu backs, but as Ted correctly posited, most sets are known to double-print cards, often just to fill in the unused spaces on the sheet. Still all speculation, but educated nonetheless.

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Posted By: Ted Zanidakis

Barry and Jamie

The 1st series of Southern Leaguers comprising 42 players was issued
very early in the game. However, this does not have to conflict with my
theory of a 48 card sheet. I have gone through many 1000's of T206
cards, and with respect to the So. Lgrs, I have noticed how some of
them seem to be more available than others....Thebo is one that I've
seen more often than others. This fact could imply that 6 of the So.
Lgrs were double-printed to fill out a possible 48 card sheet.

Later in the T206 run, when the Old Mill and Piedmont 350 series of the
So Lgrs were introduced, all 48 players were printed. And these cards,
which I am sure you will agree, are certainly more plentiful than the
early Hindu run (of just 42 players).

These two latter releases of the So Lgr cards appears to be coincident
with the 460-only Series printing (which also consists of just 48 players).
So, perhaps as the T206 designers neared the end of the T206 production
design, they were formatting the cards in groups of 48.

And finally, Jamie, I appreciate your comments about the vertical print-
ing (or column printing) of T206 players. But, this was not consistent
across all players, as I (and other collectors) have examples of cards
with different names on the top border of a T206.

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Posted By: barrysloate

Ted- I agree that double printing players on a sheet is as old as baseball cards themselves. The number of cards in a set and the number that fit on a sheet generally don't coincide (occasionally they do) so the printer needs to fill in those blank spaces with something. I've noticed a lot of Thebos too so maybe that is one of the six possible double prints.

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Posted By: Jamie Hull

Hi Ted.
I didn't mean to completely throw cold water on the number 48, just to suggest that it's really, really hard to figure out how many cards were on a sheet -- and that that question is a different question from how many different fronts/poses/players (choose your term) were on a printed sheet.

And you're right that some cards certainly are found with a name at the top of the card that's different from the player pictured -- I own one myself. I was just basing my observation on my own experience with T206s. I've seen no more than a handful of cards that have the different name at the top, while I've seen probably well over 100 that have the same player name. Logically, that suggests a quite small number of fronts/poses/players were double printed.

I think it would be interesting to try to catalogue those fronts/poses/players that have been seen with a different name at the top of the card. If they were double prints, those fronts should be ones that are among the most easily found. Mine is Engle with Phillippe at the top. There's certainly nothing rare about those two.

Jamie

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Posted By: barrysloate

Because the majority of off center cards with the name at the top is the same name as that at the bottom, perhaps these sheets were bigger than 48 and a typical sheet had most players printed twice on it. It's clear that if the same name is at the top, that card appeared twice on the sheet. Maybe a sheet had a 100 cards on it, with 48 of them printed twice and only four cards single printed. Who knows, but I'm starting to lean towards this double print theory.

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Posted By: jay behrens

I would think that there has to more than 2 of the same player on the sheet. The same name top and bottom is rule, not the exception. It's highly unlikely that if there are only 2 cards of a given player that miscut would happen on the same exact spot on the sheet.

Jay

I've just reached Upper Lower Class. I am now officially a babe magnet for poor chicks.

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Posted By: Jamie Hull

Ah, well...I get to my computer at home and find evidence to muddy what I said earlier. Here's a scan I took off of eBay a couple years ago.



Lundgren (Chicago) is a very tough card -- 9th most difficult of all T206s according to Scot Reader's recent checklist. So, was Lundgren (Chicago) a short printed card -- only 1 example per sheet and hence X times rarer than all others (X = number of rows on a printed sheet)? That would be one explanation, I guess.

Jamie

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Posted By: Richard Masson

Is the player on top Doolin?

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Posted By: T206Collector

...that I'm not sure makes a whole heck of a lot of difference, but my Shreck has a faint "Hayden, Indianapolis" visible on the bottom reverse, probably a wet sheet transfer. Of course, could have been two different sheets placed on top of one another.

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Posted By: Brian Weisner

Hi Jamie,
That's my Lundgren.... and it's one of only 11 cards I have seen with a different name on the top than the bottom. It appears that most sheets contained 10-12 different players across and the same player running from top to bottom. I would like to talk about the subject more, but I'm packing for Vegas, and don't have time. Be well Brian

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Posted By: Ted Zanidakis

Brian W

You can't leave us "hanging" like this.....you have to get your priorities
straight. Going to Vegas is not as important as your "words of wisdom" on
this subject....ha, ha !
When you get a chance, do tell us what you know or your whatever theories
you have.

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Posted By: Michael

Very interesting thread.....Long time lurker (all the way back tot he days of the full count board).

It would be interesting if we could track the T206 miscuts that depict a player's name on the top of the card that is different from the player that is actually depicted on the card. Perhaps there is a correlation between this and a particular series (given that we all know the cards were issued in different series).

Perhaps, when the cards were first printed, they were layed out with the same player along the columns, and as the printing process was refined, or maybe at the behest of the ATC (maybe to cut costs, perhaps the card production was rathceted down towards the end of the run??), the later series' were printed with different players along the columns and rows(much like the sheets of today). A reduced print run could certainly be plausible....The ATC wishes to save some $$$, but they still want to include a plethora of players, so they change the layout of the sheets.

Of cousre, this is all blind speculation on my part...I have no hard evidence to back any of this up. A little food for thought.

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Posted By: robert a

Michael,
No one has hard evidence. We can only speculate.
We do know that these miscuts are found on other issues as well like t213. Not sure if they were cutting corners or if some sheets contained one player and others contained more than one.

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Posted By: Michael

Robert,

I totally agree about the hard evidence. Researching and theorizing about topics such as this is part of the allure (at least for me) of the hobby.

Be well.

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Posted By: davidcycleback

Just some notes for thought ... There are cases where the same card is printed at least twice on a T206 sheet, as there are cases where the player's name on top of an oversized card is the same as the card below .... With modern uncut sheets, there are regular cases where a card appears a few times on a sheet, and cases where all the cards appear more than once on a single sheet. Price guides experts often know which cards were single printed and which double or triple printed as they've looked at uncut sheets. And most price guides wish to look at newly discovered uncut sheets for this purpose ... The different sheets for a single set are not always the same size, and a sheet may not be completely filled with cards-- meaning there's blank area.

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Posted By: Jon Canfield

Although I do not normally collect miscuts (even though I own a couple), I know many people do. I'm just curious if anyone has ever documented miscuts that came up on eBay or have been available in other auctions - or even in collections. I know that the miscuts normally appear top-bottom, but there are side-side miscuts in which two different players fronts are on the same card, each appearing on half of the card. Has anyone every tried to take these miscuts and piece together a little bit of the sheet or distribution pattern. For example, if there was card of player X that had player Y's name on top (a top to bottom miscut), we could assume that Y was above X on the sheet. Now assume there might be a card that exists with player T on the left side, and player Y on the right side (a side to side miscut). Couldn't we then assume that on a sheet, Player T was to the left of Y, and Y was above X. Can you see where I'm going with this? Is it possible or are miscuts just too rare to actually have the same player miscut in order to piece together any sort of sheet placement?

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Posted By: barrysloate

Jon- I see where you are going, and I thought about the same thing- trying to recreate a sheet. But if you had a group of these top/bottom or side to side miscuts, you couldn't be certain they were all from the same sheet or different sheets. There would just be too many blank spaces.

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Posted By: Richard Masson

What I find most perplexing is that we have uncut sheets from virtually every mainstream set except for T206, the most prolific and widely distributed set of the early twentieth century. There's even uncut sheets of caramel cards! All these different plants and series, not one sheet survives? I find that to be unbelievable.

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Posted By: Brian Weisner

Hi Ted,
I have meetings in Vegas, so it's not all fun.... and I would never leave you hanging, because I will return.


Hi Jon,
Yes, there are several of us error collectors out there that have tried to put together a sheet, but to my knowledge it has not been done. 3-4 players? Yes, but not more than 5. Talk to you soon. Brian