Original 12-card horizontal E91 strip may reveal 1909 printing format

[steve B]

From the centennial edition. Page 26-27 http://www.oldcardboard.com/t/t206/i...al-edition.pdf

"Using the one billion production number for Piedmont cigarettes in 1910 as a marker, one can extrapolate a T206 circulation in the neighborhood of 370 million. In particular, it is known that there were 10 cigarettes in a Piedmont pack, and that a typical Piedmont pack contained one T206 card. Assuming pack-only distribution of Piedmont cigarettes, and further assuming every Piedmont pack had a T206 card, the number of Piedmont-backed T206 cards produced in 1910 is estimable at about 100 million. Furthermore, it is known that approximately half of all T206 cards have a Piedmont reverse. Thus, one can surmise that the total number of T206s produced in 1910 was in the neighborhood of 200 million. Assuming an additional seven months of production in 1909 and three months in 1911 at equivalent rates to the 1910production, the total production estimate for T206 cards nearly doubles to a whopping 370 million!
On the other hand, actual circulation may well have been considerably lower. It has been reported that in 1910 and 1911 bird and fish subjects were distributed in some Old Mill, Piedmont, Sovereign and Sweet Caporal packs instead of baseball subjects. This would likely have meaningfully reduced the number of T206 cards circulated.

I went with half the high end, 185 million. And the high end of the daily output for a hand fed press. 15000/day
185000000 /96 = 1927083.33 sheets.
1927083.33 x 7 colors = 13489583 impressions
13489583 / 15000 sheets/day = 899.3 days of press time. (2.46 years, actually just about right........except.........

That's not counting time for setup, maintainance, and assorted other problems. Or a slower feeder only doing 12K sheets a day. Or the higher end of the estimate being accurate.

Multiple presses for sure.


I wonder - Are the approximate sales of American Caramel known? Maybe we can figure backwards to a possible print run for the E91s from that.

Steve B