Yet Another T206 Sheet Size Discussion

[tedzan]

Originally Posted by t206hound

Glad you jumped in Ted. I honestly enjoy when you get in on this discussion and respect your opinions on the matter. The possibility of 17 cards jumped out at me again when I realized that the Sweet Cap 150 issues all were multiples of 17 (153, 153 and 34). I don't know anything about the presses used, ALC's equipment, etc. All I know are the cards in each issue... and after that I'm just using gut, math and logic.

Be careful now....you chose two SWEET CAP examples that PERHAPS fit your number "17". There are other SWEET CAP examples that conform to my "12 factor". For example....the Exclusive 12 subjects with SWEET CAP 350-460 Factory #42. These 12 cards are the only SWEET CAP #42's in the 460-only series.




Note my emphasis of PERHAPS in your examples. I have theorized that the so-called "34 subjects" of the SWEET CAP 150 Factory #30 group were actually on a 36-card sheet. The
two missing guys were Plank and Wagner (who we know were discarded). Or, if you think this theory of mine is too speculative, then consider this.....the two additional slots were
filled by Double-Printing popular guys like Johnson and Matty.

Originally Posted by t206hound

I know that you (and others) contend that there is no other sheet dimension that could have been used, but the uncut Obak sheet was 31" x 23.5" and had 21 cards per row (image from the Huggins and Scott auction listing below). It's interesting with the Obak that half the set (88) composition is represented in this sheet, which would lead you to believe a single additional sheet layout comprised the remaining cards (87). It's also interesting to me that while the entire set could have fit on a single sheet (179 card sheet layout, and 175 cards in the set) that the cards were split onto two different sheets. I'll guess it is because it allowed them to use two presses running at the same time to produce the cards.

Regarding the OBAK sheet. Schmidt Lithographic (SL) of San Francisco was a large a printing firm as American Lithographic (ALC). SL produced some very high quality litho's
early in the 20th Century.
They apparently made use of their larger printing presses in the production of the OBAK series. Whereas, ALC realized, with their 6-7 color process, they achieved a higher
quality yield by printing smaller sheets of cards. And, yield was an important factor when you are cranking out 10 Million cards (or more). I have seen several uncut sheets
of various Non-Sports issues done by ALC....and, some are printed on smaller size (smaller than 19" x 24") sheets.

My point is, that you cannot compare what SL produced and try to translate that to what ALC produced. These two printing firms operated quite differently.



TED Z