Probably time to talk about all those Factory30's on...

[t206fix]

Sorry guys, my pictures of pictures are very small. Here are the larger scans, and hopefully you can see better:

Also, notice below his right elbow there is a small window of white by the border.

[Pat R]

Hi Tony, I do have one other Wilhelm from the ebay seller.

Wilhelm [1] - Copy.jpg

#1 in your group is #4 your #2 is #2 in mine your #3 is #1 in mine
and your #4 is #5 in mine. You're missing #3 here's a larger scan of
the front and back.

Wilhelm%20_3_.jpg Wilhelm%20Back%20_3_.jpg

in your large scans #3 and #4 are scans of the same card.

[steve B]

After a quick look, it gets more interesting.

They may be different positions.
I didn't see any 350's with the centerline, or any 350-460's without it. And there do seem to be slight differences, but they could just be inking levels.

[t206fix]

Factory line tends to move around on the back of these cards as well.
On three, the B cuts the Y right down the middle while on the same card the J doesn't touch the 0. On the other three, the B cuts the Y to the right and the J does touch the 0.

Steve, does this mean same sheet, but different backs
or different sheets?

[steve B]

Originally Posted by t206fix

Factory line tends to move around on the back of these cards as well.
On three, the B cuts the Y right down the middle while on the same card the J doesn't touch the 0. On the other three, the B cuts the Y to the right and the J does touch the 0.

Steve, does this mean same sheet, but different backs
or different sheets?

Nice catch! That would be a small difference between backs on the same sheet. I've seen it shown before, but haven't studied it much at all. So different positions on the sheet. The ones that are the same might be the same position on a different sheet.

It also means that the factory line wasn't part of the overall back, but was added individually. It's probably true for all the SC cards and Piedmont 350-460 cards. I'm not sure about others. It seems like a lot of extra work if you know a brand is only from one factory, but maybe.


Finding out how many slightly different backs there are for the same front and matching them with similar slight differences on the fronts should eventually give us an idea of how many cards the sheet was vertically. Sort of like the plate scratches, but not as obvious, and with no way to tell which one was above another one (Aside from miscuts, but there's too few of those. ) Or if there were two different fronts in the same vertical row and how many of each.

[steve B]

The J touches the O differently in all 3, so those are 3 different positions.
I haven't spotted a clear difference in the other 3, except maybe one had a slightly deformed Y?

So 4-5 different positions out of 6 cards.

[Pat R]

There are stains on the back of some of the cards. I'm not sure but they
might have been from the full sheet before it was cut down.

Here are a couple of Wagners that might have been together vertically #2 and #5.

Wagner _1__1.jpg
Wagner Back _1__1.jpg
Wagner Back [2].jpg