T209 Website launch

[Michael Peich]

Steve—Thank you for the thoughtful post. I don’t know what I was thinking when I wrote that ALC was in Philadelphia. A “duh” moment. Mea culpa.

I agree with you that the cards were not produced by ALC. Despite being color lithos, they are a bit crudely executed by comparison with T206. I still think photographic jobbers had samples of player poses for customers to choose, and that’s what Erwin-Nadal went with, and then used their own printer to produce the cards.

I do think the cards were inserts since it was a successful business model for ATC, and Contentnea was trying to attract customers. Keep in mind that Erwin-Nadal had local competition (Wilson, NC) from Carolina Brights who were publically owned by Wells-Whitehead, but secretly owned by ATC. Erwin-Nadal would have known the ATC business model regarding cards and probably emulated it. And, as Scott Reader’s research establishes, the cards contained in brands owned by ATC created a collecting frenzy, one that E-W tried to capitalize upon.

Leon—Of course there are examples of hand-stamped backs, and thanks for displaying yours. In the essay on Series One, Tim and I hypothesize that Erwin-Nadal was working hastily to get the cards out. When they discovered the tax stamp omission, E-W quickly started stamping by hand. Fortunately for you, and others of us, it created an interesting back variation. I love the hand-stamped backs and am pleased to have a number of them in my Series One set.

Thank you for your interest and responses!

Cheers,
Mike