The rarest..Brown OLD MILL/Factory #649 red overprint

[canjond]

Ted - I don't quite follow your connection here when you say specifically "No coincidence, I say....the various Factory's throughout ATC system would place orders with American Litho. (ALC) for 1000's of T206's. ALC would then fill these orders on a large batch process, printing up all cards destined for that factory....in this case HINDU and SWEET CAPORAL."

. Let me break down why:

- I follow your connection between Hindu and the borwn Old Mills, specifically that you postulate that the printer's may have not re-inked the machine after a brown Hindu run when printing the Old Mill backs, hence why we have brown Old Mill backs.

- I lose you here, however... If the connection between the Sweet Caporal's being overprinted for Factory 649 and the Old Mill's having the 649 red bar on them was to come full circle, wouldn't Old Mill's have to be from Factory 649, not the Hindu's? In other words, if Old Mill is connected to both Hindu (through the brown ink) and Sweet Caporal 649 (through the red overprint), and Hindu and SC are connected in that both were 649's, I don't see where Old Mill fits into this scenario (as this is Factory 25, Va)... It seems like an odd "brand" out.

Assuming your Old Mill brown theory is correct, the printer would have had to ink the machine to print factory 649 Hindu's. Then, they ran a batch of Factory 25 OM's, but forgot to re-ink the machine black. They then changed back to SC's to run 649 SC's? The connection is lost. The printer started with 640 Hindu's, changed to Factory 25 OM's, then went to 649 SC's. All of the cards for a single factory, ie factory 649, were not produced in a single order. A factory 25 order was completed inbetween.