T206 printing mystery

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Posted By: J Levine

Gents and ladies,
I disagree on the coil process. Several reasons.

First off, These were inserts to be placed in packs of cigarettes and were designed not to be a selling point. Really. The tobacco was the product. This is evidenced by the lack of advertising for T-cards over the several years produced. Why is this important? Cost. Keep the cost down. If inserting cards into packs of American Tobacco Co. product was not profitable, I doubt the company would continue to produce cards for 5 years.

Coils as stated above are expensive. Imagine trying to ship a paper product in 1909. Imagine trying to ship large quantities of paper then. It would cost a bunch just to move the paper across town in 1909. Cars? Trucks? Rail? People? Horses? Expensive. I feel they were printed in large sheets in one place and shipped after all the printing is done to the tobacco packaging facotires. This is only one shipment and can cut down on over printing.

Second is the scraps that we have seen with ghosts, double prints etc. Very tough to explain these. Why would they run the coils through the machines twice, three times, etc. I think they ended up this way because wet large sheets were laid on top of each other.

T205s...not vertical strips of same players. Also printed differently with movable type on the back. The Moran stray line shows that type was removed to print the different backs. Very expensive to do. I have seen rough cuts on T205s that show oversized cards with two cards horizontally. Might be scrap but I doubt it.

I doubt they would revamp their entire printing process for the cards. I am fairly sure the fronts were printed first and the backs were then stamped on (ala my 8th grade graphic arts printing class).

Now I know I am just a 1st grade teacher with nearly no printing experience but I really feel like the larger sheet theory is best.

Joshua