T218 series breakdown and ad backs

[G1911]

Originally Posted by Exhibitman

Nor have I. My guess is that it has something to do with the front-facing (blue) card which is available as a Tolstoi.

Speaking of sheets, I wish there was an intact one to review. I am curious how these cards were arrayed, especially given this:



Clearly the same card printed in a line.

Johnson (Green) is also missing the Mecca, No Series notation, Factory 30 card and the Hassann, Series 2 notation, Factory 30 card.

It is known with, from series 1:
Mecca, Factory 649 (presumably the first one printed, with an error on the back not present on the others)
Hassan, Factory 30
Hassan, Factory 649

And from series 2:
Mecca, Series 2, Factory 30
Mecca, Series 2, Factory 649
Hassan, no series notation, Factory 30 (differentiated from the first series print run because the image is reversed in the second series cards)
Hassan, Series 2, Factory 649

I suspect the Johnson Green was printed on it's own sheet, as its late addition in Series 1 does not seem to have replaced any card or created any shortage (If Johnson replaced Handy, as is often said, then one of the cards or both should be notably tougher with a Mecca 649 back. This is not the case), and it was clearly missing from several back runs. Would explain why this card breaks all the rules without creating double/short prints.

The only other rule breakers in the first two series are H.J. Handy not existing with either series 1 Hassan back and Jack Johnson (Blue) may or may not exist with a Hassan, no series notation, Factory 30 back.



The larger format cards are usually not miscut enough to see what the adjacent card is side-to-side; I've been looking them for them here, in T29, T30, T118, etc. sized sets from the ATC/American Lithography that share this size format. I have a side-to-side T68 showing two different cards next to each other, but T68's are a bit different size. Perhaps, unlike the smaller size cards that repeated an image in a column (though not all the way down the column), it was rows that repeated a card for part if its length? I've thought the 9 C52 cards from T218 Series 2 that were printed with C52's run of first series T218 cards with duplicate numbers may have constituted a T218/C52 sheet and give us a clue as to how many cards unique cards actually appeared on a sheet. The possible No-Prints of some of the Series 3 track guys with the caption variation might be a clue to into the Series 3 sheet layouts