T206 Print Groups-A Quick Overview

[Abravefan11]

Craig-I don't know that anyone can prove where the sheets were cut for certain, but to me (just my 2 cents) it's most logical that they were cut at ALC. Cutting the cards was part of creating a finished product. That is something the print house would be responsible for. Just as they would with business cards, posters, box labels, or just about any other printed product.

One of the brothers who printed the E222 set was a "cutter" for A. Hoen, a large lithography company in Richmond, prior to starting Fulton Press.

[Abravefan11]

These videos show two examples of cutters used in printing facilities.

The first is for a manual cutter that more than likely predated the T206 set.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s0JJajMda3w

The second is for a cutter run by an electric motor that is closer to what ALC would have been using.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5ABCCeZ8Wo

[steve B]

Originally Posted by Abravefan11

These videos show two examples of cutters used in printing facilities.

The first is for a manual cutter that more than likely predated the T206 set.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s0JJajMda3w

The second is for a cutter run by an electric motor that is closer to what ALC would have been using.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5ABCCeZ8Wo

Those are some cool videos.

I ran a corner rounding machine a couple times that was made in 1910. Basically a much smaller version with a foot pedal.

The machines hadn't changed much by the late 1970's. Bigger, hydraulic power for both the holddown plate and blade, and the the strip the blade went into was plastic instead of wood. A few other modern things like two buttons to actuate the blade so you couldn't put your hand under the blade.

Typical practice was to trim the borders, then make cuts that cut the sheets into mor manageable blocks. So a 10x 10 sheet got cut into 4 5x5 partial sheets before finally getting cut down. The blade would have been adjusted for each cut. Then the whole stack cut, sometimes 20,000 sheets. Adjust for the next cut, repeat.....

I'm with Tim on the cutting. ALC delivering completely finished cut to size cards is the most likely scenario.

There would be maybe a couple reasons to have done it differently.
If the plants were using automated packing machinery that used strips of cards and cut them during the packing/inserting process. But I'd call that unlikely. I'd expect to see a number of cards factory cut on two sides, as well as a few uncut strips.
The other would be if ATC wanted the sheets sent uncut. There would be less expense in packing, but then they would have to pay someone to do the cutting. Probably not worth doing since they'd have to buy the equipment and hire people to run it.


I don't think either of those happened, but that whole era was one of massive advances in manufacturing machinery. Lithography was changing from stones to metal plates, more stuff was being run by electricity, stuff like that.

Steve B