T220 Silver - Uncut Edition

[G1911]

I've begun my drive into "Old Masters Lithographic Company" and... wow, there isn't much at all. I haven't found squat from 1909-1912 that we want to focus on here. But there are some things.

Here's a company by this name, with a 1926 patent from the 350th volume of the Official Gazette of the United States Patent Office (https://www.google.com/books/edition...C?hl=en&gbpv=0, the .pdf is 547mb). A Thomas A. Meehan is either an executive of this company or the inventor of this product (I lay no claim to understanding what it actually is).

A Thomas Meehan apparently later owned a "Meehan-Tooker" company that purchased Bauer Lithography in 1946 according to an industry journal.

A Thomas Meehan published in Philadelphia in 1880 a collection of chromo-lithographs of botanical pictures, the Native Flowers and Ferns of the United States

I do not know that either of these men are the same Thomas Meehan, or that a Meehan or this Old Masters Lithographic Company is the same as the Old Masters Lithographic Company that Fullgraff, while clearly an Employee of Brett Lithography and with a deep association with the ATC and American Lithography, was using on his business card affixed to the cover of his ledger.

"Old Masters" was an industry term, and makes sense to use as the name of a lithography company; this may be a different company 15 years later. It may have been a name Fullgraff used for his business concerns as a contractor salesman (he gave up his salary in early 1910 after only a year with Brett to work commission only). This may have been a personal book for his own use. Even today many sales reps have not dissimilar spreadsheets tracking things themselves to validate their commissions and the like. Fullgraff was involved with card production of the classic N sets, the T sets, and evidently tried again in the 1920's. It's possible the figures recorded were for him to validate production counts and contracts for his commissions (which he clearly did, for he sued Brett years later for not paying him right), and he scrapbooked some of his creations out of hobby interest, pride in his work as he was a designer and marketer as well as a salesman at the least, or something else. Cards were clearly a significant part of his business life. Or it might be a formal ledger from this evidently small printer, that is presumably a subsidiary of American Lithographic, Brett, or both.

This would be a lot easier if it's buyer would out himself so we could see more than a handful of pages



2023 EDIT: I am leaving what I said for the record, but coming back to correct a point on Meehan. The Thomas Meehan who published the book of botanical pictures is confirmed to be a different Meehan.

[G1911]

Meehan-Tooker was a significantly sizer lithographer. In 1964 they were bought by City News and Schneider Press, and added 60,000 square feet of offie space and 130 more employees. A Meehan does not seem to have been leading the company bearing his name at this time. There are numerous industry references to them from the 1950's and later in the New York area. They reincorporated in 1969 and now appear to be in NJ or possibly MI as a very small company. They had subsidiary lithography companies in NY as late as 1997.

So there is a Thomas Meehan, Lithographer, working for a company of the same name on Fullgraff's business card some time later. The Fullgraff book is presumably after 1910; the Dixie Queen's in it are probably from the mid 1910's. So this gentleman is a lithographer in the same place with the same business name a decade later, and then his name is used for a Lithography company which he isn't running anymore by the 1950's and continues to recent times. He may be the owner of Old Masters in 1926, he must be a significant employee at least. I'm not finding much on him from the 1910's or 20's. But this may be our path to ID'ing Old Masters.

The book of botany lithographs appears to be a different Meehan from this inventor/lithographer, a professor of the subject and probably not our man.

[G1911]

While trying to find a connection between this Meehan and Fullgraff, I found that Fullgraff was also an active member of New York Republican politics. He was a member of the Republican State Committee, President for the party of the 2nd Ward's 4th district in 1912. Evidently the man had time to do almost everything under the sun.