T220 Silver - Uncut Edition

[G1911]

Also, got shown these on the non-sports side. These sheets were evidently destroyed and cutup, for 2 of the fragments reside in my collection now.

There is so little ATC uncut card material left to work with here to make deductions from.

Almost all the rest are tiny print color test 'sheets' that are obviously a different size from production runs.

[steve B]

as far as I know, print shops that do general work have a variety of press sizes.
The tiny place I was at had three, a small one that did regular 10 1/2x11 or smaller paper, one that did 24inch paper and two that did 35 inch. Later a 35inch two color press was added.

What press was used was a matter of what was being done and how many.

A couple thousand business cards went on the little press, a thousand book covers showing a fighter jet in full color for a recruiting place went on the 24, and a huge order for multi part bank deposit slips went on the 35.

The larger presses aren't and as far as I know weren't limited to large paper sizes. So the 35" presses could easily run the 24" stuff, or the business cards.
I'm sure there was a formula but the area they never had me help in was the business end. (There were formulas I learned for machining in tech school, and it seems like very similar ones would work well for printing. )

But...

With the quantities of cards in general we've learned were printed, I can't imagine them being done on a small press.

[G1911]

Originally Posted by steve B

as far as I know, print shops that do general work have a variety of press sizes.
The tiny place I was at had three, a small one that did regular 10 1/2x11 or smaller paper, one that did 24inch paper and two that did 35 inch. Later a 35inch two color press was added.

What press was used was a matter of what was being done and how many.

A couple thousand business cards went on the little press, a thousand book covers showing a fighter jet in full color for a recruiting place went on the 24, and a huge order for multi part bank deposit slips went on the 35.

The larger presses aren't and as far as I know weren't limited to large paper sizes. So the 35" presses could easily run the 24" stuff, or the business cards.
I'm sure there was a formula but the area they never had me help in was the business end. (There were formulas I learned for machining in tech school, and it seems like very similar ones would work well for printing. )

But...

With the quantities of cards in general we've learned were printed, I can't imagine them being done on a small press.

Do you know anything about the speed of presses in 1910? From what I can find, it was notable when a new press was installed at one of these lithographers, and sometimes we can see claimed speed rates from the press makers or lithographers. In 1916, Brett purchased one that could do over 2,500 sheets an hour at 45x65 inches. I can't find yet a record closer to late 1910. Sounds like it would have been less than this per press per hour.

A press that could spit out 2,500 sheets an hour would produce ~25,000 sheets a day. With 200 silver border cards a day, that's 5,000,000 cards in one day, from one press.

If it was, in late 1910, say, 1,000 sheets an hour, that would still be 10,000 sheets of 200 cards each - 2,000,000 cards in one day from one press. And this is for T220, one of the physically largest of the T sets. T206 size sets would fit far more cards if they were on sheets near this size.

Well less than 2,000,000 silver border cards were probably produced. I doubt more than ~5,000 exist today, and that would be a very high estimate.

I had thought they wouldn't be nearly this efficient. We've talked a lot about the huge scale of the T card production and how all evidence is that it greatly exceeds what people think, and that the survival rate is much lower than people generally think.

[steve B]

I think the figure I saw for the 1910 era flatbed presses was around 800 sheets and hour.
There's a reason the rotaries killed off the flatbed presses so quickly.

The ones we had I think could run about 4000 sheets/hour.

The new ones.... 15000/hour up to 21,000/hr!

And remember, they were doing around 8 colors plus the backs, and there had to be some drying time in between, so figure about a week and a half from blank to finished cards IF they used multiple presses because I can't imagine changing the stone on a flatbed that size was a quick task.

ALC and Hoe were pretty close, Hoe had some rotary typeset presses that were multi color and fed from a roll of material. I have to really organize my thoughts and write them up, but there's a bit of evidence that a 2 color press was used. Which is really interesting because supposedly the first rotary offset litho press was invented in 1910.

Hoe wrote a book mostly self serving in 1902 covering the history of presses, mostly the ones made for typography and newspapers. Those were much faster.
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/6354...-h/63545-h.htm

[Pat R]

I think the majority of the T206's were printed on large sheets just like the one you have assembled with your T220 panels. I say majority because I think it's possible that some smaller sheets were printed at other facility's with ties to ALC.

We have pretty solid evidence of the minimum width of the sheets with one of the plate scratch sheets that has 24 cards in a horizontal row.

I think they changed the layouts but kept the sheet size when that got to the the last two smaller print groups (3 and 4).

The backs these test print scraps show a minimum of 17 cards in a horizontal row and it could easily also be 24 if the "exclusive 12" were double printed horizontally to fit the sheet and that would explain why the two different Pfeffer's have different subjects on the backs.

Test Print Scrap - Copy.jpg

[G1911]

Originally Posted by Pat R

I think the majority of the T206's were printed on large sheets just like the one you have assembled with your T220 panels. I say majority because I think it's possible that some smaller sheets were printed at other facility's with ties to ALC.

We have pretty solid evidence of the minimum width of the sheets with one of the plate scratch sheets that has 24 cards in a horizontal row.

I think they changed the layouts but kept the sheet size when that got to the the last two smaller print groups (3 and 4).

The backs these test print scraps show a minimum of 17 cards in a horizontal row and it could easily also be 24 if the "exclusive 12" were double printed horizontally to fit the sheet and that would explain why the two different Pfeffer's have different subjects on the backs.

Attachment 561764

Looking at the non-sport ATC sets of the T205/T206 physical dimensions, 25 would across would make perfect sense. 50 card sets and 25 card waves are indicated as a standard size. Unlike T206, I have not come across one of these non-sport cards in that size that has a different subject showing above or below on a miscut card. What I expect to find and what we do find are often very different, but demonstrating 24 across at least makes perfect sense.

[G1911]

Originally Posted by steve B

I think the figure I saw for the 1910 era flatbed presses was around 800 sheets and hour.
There's a reason the rotaries killed off the flatbed presses so quickly.

The ones we had I think could run about 4000 sheets/hour.

The new ones.... 15000/hour up to 21,000/hr!

And remember, they were doing around 8 colors plus the backs, and there had to be some drying time in between, so figure about a week and a half from blank to finished cards IF they used multiple presses because I can't imagine changing the stone on a flatbed that size was a quick task.

ALC and Hoe were pretty close, Hoe had some rotary typeset presses that were multi color and fed from a roll of material. I have to really organize my thoughts and write them up, but there's a bit of evidence that a 2 color press was used. Which is really interesting because supposedly the first rotary offset litho press was invented in 1910.

Hoe wrote a book mostly self serving in 1902 covering the history of presses, mostly the ones made for typography and newspapers. Those were much faster.
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/6354...-h/63545-h.htm

Thank you for this.

The scale of the operation outside the direct orienting seems like it would be the larger pain. The need (and massive space) to dry all these sheets, to process through the cutting machine, and then to pack the single cards (I'd be fairly surprised if there was much collation work - people buying packs to get the cards must have been awfully frustrated with getting the same ~25 subjects all the time over and over) and to ship them out must have taken a lot of people in 1910.

[Pat R]

Originally Posted by steve B

I think the figure I saw for the 1910 era flatbed presses was around 800 sheets and hour.
There's a reason the rotaries killed off the flatbed presses so quickly.

The ones we had I think could run about 4000 sheets/hour.

The new ones.... 15000/hour up to 21,000/hr!

And remember, they were doing around 8 colors plus the backs, and there had to be some drying time in between, so figure about a week and a half from blank to finished cards IF they used multiple presses because I can't imagine changing the stone on a flatbed that size was a quick task.

ALC and Hoe were pretty close, Hoe had some rotary typeset presses that were multi color and fed from a roll of material. I have to really organize my thoughts and write them up, but there's a bit of evidence that a 2 color press was used. Which is really interesting because supposedly the first rotary offset litho press was invented in 1910.

Hoe wrote a book mostly self serving in 1902 covering the history of presses, mostly the ones made for typography and newspapers. Those were much faster.
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/6354...-h/63545-h.htm

Edward Hett invented a multi color rotary sheet press in 1899 and he sold his invention to American Lithograph.

01b.jpg


Here's the thread I posted about his invention and sale to ALC.

https://www.net54baseball.com/showth...ighlight=Press

[steve B]

Originally Posted by Pat R

Edward Hett invented a multi color rotary sheet press in 1899 and he sold his invention to American Lithograph.

Attachment 562118


Here's the thread I posted about his invention and sale to ALC.

https://www.net54baseball.com/showth...ighlight=Press

Damn, I must be getting old and forgetting stuff.

What's interesting is that most online histories of printing and lithography still don't mention Hett at all, but attribute the first rotary press with plates to someone else in (assuming I'm remembering it right) 1910.

I do wonder if Hetts press was built, or how and if it worked. I can see some potential problems, but there were rotary presses in newspaper work well before that. Just not lithographic presses.

[Pat R]

Originally Posted by steve B

Damn, I must be getting old and forgetting stuff.

What's interesting is that most online histories of printing and lithography still don't mention Hett at all, but attribute the first rotary press with plates to someone else in (assuming I'm remembering it right) 1910.

I do wonder if Hetts press was built, or how and if it worked. I can see some potential problems, but there were rotary presses in newspaper work well before that. Just not lithographic presses.

That's surprising because it's mentioned in 100's of newspapers from 1899 until his death in 1915 and although he is credited with other inventions the multi-color press is the one thing mentioned in his obituaries. The $300,000 that he received from American Lithograph in 1900 is equivalent to more than 10.5 million dollars today.

Multi color pressThe_Rushville_Recorder_Fri__Dec_8__1899_.jpg

Multi-color press inventor Salt_Lake_Telegram_Mon__Aug_16__1915_.jpg