1921 Koester's Bread Cards on E-Bay

[steve B]

It would really depend on the exact printing process used

As I understand it, the Koesters have a few cards that are only Koesters and that sheets were available, maybe as a premium?

The cards look lithographed, and the way that much lithography was done pre-computer is that the original art was photographed, and the "negative" (Actually a positive image) Was taped to a mask, which made a full plate size sheet with transparencies on it. This was used to make the printing plate, also by a photographic process. Since the Koesters had special cards, and only certain other cards from W575 they would have made a new plate. In most cases this would have been done with a new mask. And that's where the differences would happen. Since the old mask would still be needed to make plates for standard W575s It would be saved.
New photos would be taken, and a new mask made for the Koesters plate. It's nearly impossible to get the screen lined up exactly the same twice in a row, and I can pretty much guarantee that the guy doing the pictures wouldn't have even considered trying. His job was to take the pictures and to do it well and quickly.
Now bear in mind that It's really tiny differences we'd be talking about, Like in a particular row is it 3 dots between the border and an object, or is it more like half a dot two complete dots then another half dot. Or are the lines of dots at a 45 degree angle or at 50degrees. Not enough to matter to nearly anyone, but still a difference you could find.

There are other printing methods, and some of them would have a similar process, for others with a somewhat different process there might not be a difference. For typography there probably would be no difference since there would be actual blocks made for each card, and the W575 blocks would be reused.

This is one of the things That for me has crossed over from stamp collecting. There sometimes the printing method gets to be very important telling which stamp it is, and if it's real. Lithography, typography, and engraving have very different characteristics, and if it was printed by typography, but has litho characteristics then it's fake. And the tiny differences actually matter. 5 dots on Washingtons nose $100. 7 dots .20 (Not actual details, but you get the idea)

I'd love to see nice detailed scans either way, I think theres a good deal to be learned from them.

Steve