Why I think Cobb wasn't printed with a Brown Hindu back

[toppcat]

Originally Posted by steve B

That would indicate to me that T206 production probably happened at both ALC and Brett litho. (And possibly other places)

I'm wondering if Brett did the fronts and American Litho the backs. I found out a little while ago from a reliable source that Topps printed their backs first then sent them to another printer to run the fronts. Could this have happened with the ATC sets?

[Pat R]

Originally Posted by toppcat

I'm wondering if Brett did the fronts and American Litho the backs. I found out a little while ago from a reliable source that Topps printed their backs first then sent them to another printer to run the fronts. Could this have happened with the ATC sets?

I'm not sure if this is what your saying Dave but the T206 fronts were definitely printed first not the backs.

[toppcat]

Originally Posted by Pat R

I'm not sure if this is what your saying Dave but the T206 fronts were definitely printed first not the backs.

Yes, that's indeed what I was saying-it makes sense to me the backs could have been printed at American Litho once the front printed sheets were sent there. I forget the exact AL addy (18th St ?) but it's about five miles from their location uptown to Brett using 20 blocks to the mile

[Pat R]

Originally Posted by toppcat

Yes, that's indeed what I was saying-it makes sense to me the backs could have been printed at American Litho once the front printed sheets were sent there. I forget the exact AL addy (18th St ?) but it's about five miles from their location uptown to Brett using 20 blocks to the mile

It was 19th street and 4th Avenue.

[G1911]

I can't find solid proof of the connection between ALC and Brett, but I think they are probably really the same company but different locations and branding (If they aren't, the phrasing of the Ball and Hyland letters would suggest the printers couldn't both print an athletes image, image was given to one litho company and not the tobacco issuer). I agree that this makes it likely T206 was printed in multiple locations considering the broad timespan of its print run, though don't think anyone has found the definitive proof yet.

Still can't find this "Old Masters Co." name Fullgraff was using as an actual company.

[steve B]

Originally Posted by toppcat

I'm wondering if Brett did the fronts and American Litho the backs. I found out a little while ago from a reliable source that Topps printed their backs first then sent them to another printer to run the fronts. Could this have happened with the ATC sets?

It's possible, but I'm trying to think why they would.
If Brett was involved, it was probably because they had higher speed equipment. It doesn't make much sense to print on high speed equipment, then ship the stuff somewhere else that had slower equipment to finish it.

The Topps thing is puzzling too. Assuming it was done in the junkwax era, it would require shipping massive amounts of sheets. There are noticeable differences within many years going back into the 60's, and especially different inks.

[Pat R]

Originally Posted by steve B

It's possible, but I'm trying to think why they would.
If Brett was involved, it was probably because they had higher speed equipment. It doesn't make much sense to print on high speed equipment, then ship the stuff somewhere else that had slower equipment to finish it.

The Topps thing is puzzling too. Assuming it was done in the junkwax era, it would require shipping massive amounts of sheets. There are noticeable differences within many years going back into the 60's, and especially different inks.

I highly doubt this Steve, it's clear American Lithograph was the biggest back then and it seemed they wanted everyone to know they were the biggest and the best They actually made a good pairing with the American Tobacco CO.

[steve B]

Originally Posted by Pat R

I highly doubt this Steve, it's clear American Lithograph was the biggest back then and it seemed they wanted everyone to know they were the biggest and the best They actually made a good pairing with the American Tobacco CO.

The numbers I came up with using the number of passes required and Scot Rs estimates on overall production combined with some info about the sheet rate of the flatbed presses worked out so that constant production would have been necessary just to get them all made. And that's also using a fairly large sheet size, and not counting anything but press time.

Running multiple presses would make it possible, but a big busy shop keeping at least two presses in constant production seems unusual.
The place I was at did a job that was a million 2 part deposit tickets for a big bank. Heat sealed into packs of I think a couple hundred. Two colors, so two passes through the press. With modern sheetfed rotary presses that still took a month plus. Upwards of 200 million cards with 9 passes. on a machine that maxed out around 1200 sheets an hour is somewhat crazy.

The description of Bretts rotary press says 10-12000 sheets a day, which seems low. It's possible they understated the speed to keep it sort of a trade secret. The Rubel rotary offset press which was built around the same time could do around 2500/hr making it about twice as fast.

The stamp on the back of the T220's indicates Brett was involved with those, either as a part of ALC, or as a subcontractor.
And that second ledger shows some very substantial quantities produced for other sets probably by someone else.

I've been thinking that instead of the masters being changed a couple times over the course of both the 150's and 350's the differences I've seen may be differences between printers. It's going to take a pretty major project to really get somewhere on just cataloging those differences.

I'm not sure if there's a way to tell if something came off a flatbed press or a rotary for an item like cards. With some other stuff the plates were made flat and bent to fit the cylinder in the press, which changed the image size.
But that may not have happened on a lithographic press. especially if the transfers were applied directly to a cylinder.
Another thing that would take some study, to see if some percentage of any particular subject had image size differences, which would be small, around half a millimeter if the rotary plate was fairly thick.

[Pat R]

Originally Posted by steve B

The numbers I came up with using the number of passes required and Scot Rs estimates on overall production combined with some info about the sheet rate of the flatbed presses worked out so that constant production would have been necessary just to get them all made. And that's also using a fairly large sheet size, and not counting anything but press time.

Running multiple presses would make it possible, but a big busy shop keeping at least two presses in constant production seems unusual.
The place I was at did a job that was a million 2 part deposit tickets for a big bank. Heat sealed into packs of I think a couple hundred. Two colors, so two passes through the press. With modern sheetfed rotary presses that still took a month plus. Upwards of 200 million cards with 9 passes. on a machine that maxed out around 1200 sheets an hour is somewhat crazy.

The description of Bretts rotary press says 10-12000 sheets a day, which seems low. It's possible they understated the speed to keep it sort of a trade secret. The Rubel rotary offset press which was built around the same time could do around 2500/hr making it about twice as fast.

The stamp on the back of the T220's indicates Brett was involved with those, either as a part of ALC, or as a subcontractor.
And that second ledger shows some very substantial quantities produced for other sets probably by someone else.

I've been thinking that instead of the masters being changed a couple times over the course of both the 150's and 350's the differences I've seen may be differences between printers. It's going to take a pretty major project to really get somewhere on just cataloging those differences.

I'm not sure if there's a way to tell if something came off a flatbed press or a rotary for an item like cards. With some other stuff the plates were made flat and bent to fit the cylinder in the press, which changed the image size.
But that may not have happened on a lithographic press. especially if the transfers were applied directly to a cylinder.
Another thing that would take some study, to see if some percentage of any particular subject had image size differences, which would be small, around half a millimeter if the rotary plate was fairly thick.

I'm pretty sure American Lithograph would have had several presses printing the T206's. I'll have to check but I think it was in the court documents in Greg's T220 thread involving Folgraff that American Lithograph said they would open up 28 of their presses for one of the projects.

[toppcat]

Originally Posted by steve B

It's possible, but I'm trying to think why they would.
If Brett was involved, it was probably because they had higher speed equipment. It doesn't make much sense to print on high speed equipment, then ship the stuff somewhere else that had slower equipment to finish it.

The Topps thing is puzzling too. Assuming it was done in the junkwax era, it would require shipping massive amounts of sheets. There are noticeable differences within many years going back into the 60's, and especially different inks.

I agree it is puzzling but do note Topps used close to a dozen different printers overall; this was before junk wax but it's not clear how far back the practice started. The sheets would be trucked from the first location to the second. if ATC did this, drayage within NYC would be possible between the two shops. Anyway, just pointing it out as a possibility.