T206 Bob Ewing small "w"

[2dueces]

I'm constantly amazed at how close we examine these cards. It's absolutely mind boggling at times. Not that there is anything wrong with it but can you see the printer 100 years ago. The machines are reeling by printing at 60 miles an hour. These are fillers for tobacco packs. It's not like they were printing US currency. I'm sure some quality control was in place but I'm sure he didn't care if a hair got in between a sheet and a plate or a piece of paper stuck for a few thousand sheets. Or a tiny scatch developed on the back side of the card plate. I think he'd have a really good chuckle reading this board picking every flaw. I'm sure he'd say, no one will care about that tiny flaw 100 years from now.

[steve B]

Originally Posted by 2dueces

I'm constantly amazed at how close we examine these cards. It's absolutely mind boggling at times. Not that there is anything wrong with it but can you see the printer 100 years ago. The machines are reeling by printing at 60 miles an hour. These are fillers for tobacco packs. It's not like they were printing US currency. I'm sure some quality control was in place but I'm sure he didn't care if a hair got in between a sheet and a plate or a piece of paper stuck for a few thousand sheets. Or a tiny scatch developed on the back side of the card plate. I think he'd have a really good chuckle reading this board picking every flaw. I'm sure he'd say, no one will care about that tiny flaw 100 years from now.

That's an excellent point, and exactly why those flaws are there for us to look at. The printing company did the job as required, and minor flaws were acceptable. The plate scratch is anything but tiny, and probably led to that P150 plate being redone or replaced. Oddly, the old reason claimed for Plank being rare is that the plate broke so thy had to stop printing them. There's a few other potential reasons that Ted has written about, but a heavily damaged back plate happening right when something else happened could have made pulling the card much easier. OR the stories got reversed between Wagner and Plank, Or.............Isn't it at least a bit fun considering what if?


And they weren't anything the hobby cared much about until recently when a few people got to trying to figure out the details like how many were on a sheet. I'm sure most collectors still don't care. It's that way in many hobbies.

When it becomes sort of dull for collectors is when specialization and getting into the details happens. As much of a monster as it is, T206 isn't that hard a set at the level of getting 520 - Set less the 4 expensive ones. So collectors move on to back runs, getting picky about condition, collecting just one back, varieties, stuff like that.
Will it become a solid part of the hobby like it is with Stamps and coins? Maybe maybe not. For sure not every collector of those things gets into the varieties. Will a few of us keep on looking for the tiny details? Yeah, that probably won't go away anytime soon.
I'm on the fence myself as to whether any of these varieties should command a premium. Part of me says yes, especially if some can be proven to be much tougher than others*. Part of me says no. In practice there should be an equal number of each since each one came from only one spot on the sheet.
So Ewing with the cutoff name should be just one of roughly 8 (Maybe more) very slightly different Ewings or any particular back. And most of the differences are very minor.

*Since the Wagner was pulled, the plates would have been replaced or reworked if it was from stones. So in theory there will be X cards with unique front flaws that are equal to the Wagner in difficulty. And they're all hiding out there, mostly as commons.

Steve B