If You're Interested in Lithographic Printing You Should Read This

[samosa4u]

It's interesting that the Americans were using rollers to make their tobacco cards, such as the T206s. In Canada, stone lithography was used to make the first hockey cards. Below is a picture of the C56 cards - the first hockey set issued here in Canada:



And do you guys want to know something crazy? One of the actual stones that was used to manufacture these cards was discovered here recently! Here it is:



I don't think anyone knows the name of the company that was hired by Imperial Tobacco Ltd. to make these cards, but they were also doing things for other companies as well.

[steve B]

Originally Posted by samosa4u

It's interesting that the Americans were using rollers to make their tobacco cards, such as the T206s. In Canada, stone lithography was used to make the first hockey cards. Below is a picture of the C56 cards - the first hockey set issued here in Canada:



And do you guys want to know something crazy? One of the actual stones that was used to manufacture these cards was discovered here recently! Here it is:



I don't think anyone knows the name of the company that was hired by Imperial Tobacco Ltd. to make these cards, but they were also doing things for other companies as well.

That would be one of the masters that they would print the transfers from.

[Pat R]

Originally Posted by steve B

That would be one of the masters that they would print the transfers from.

Steve - with this press isn't the ability to print the t206's on a pretty large sheet there.

If it is wouldn't it be possible to combine 4 large master stones and print one big sheet with it?

For instance because piedmont was their biggest brand couldn't they print them on a larger sheet like all 4 of these plate scratch sheets and then print sheet 1b for the SC150/649's on a smaller press.

[IMG][/IMG]

[steve B]

That's pretty close.
For the hockey card, they obviously made single transfers to lay out the plate. And that sheet may have been fairly small.

The T220 silver uncut panels make me think those were done using a larger transfer. Given that the alignment marks are only seen in a couple spots out of all the edge pieces, they either used larger transfers, or erased most of the alignment marks.

The T206 proofs if I remember them right all have alignment marks on each card.

But a large master and a large transfer could have been made

The press in the patent seems to only do single sheets, but with multiples on the impression cylinder all at once.

The Brett press may have been web fed, since the requirement for materials for the silks was X yards of 24" wide fabric.

That opens up a whole new batch of possibilities, like a "sheet" that was a more or less continuous strip of cards, as the plate could have wrapped almost completely around the roller. (some stamps were done on rotary presses that used two plates and the only gap was a pair of lines 180 degrees apart, or one every so many stamps. )

Rotary presses were/are also so much faster that a very large plate might not have been needed.