T220 Silver - Uncut Edition

[G1911]

So we have the company, we have the panels, we have the deductive probability that these were printed alongside the tobacco cards and used the same permission letters used for T218. Earlier, though, we have deduced that their must have been an exclusive element to the T card agreement between American Lithography and it's probably-but-still-not-proven-beyond-doubt shadow subsidiaries, and the ATC and its subsidiaries. If there had not been an exclusive element, then there's no reason Knapp and team wouldn't have produced card images for other products, as it quickly spawned a fad and numerous small operations in the 1909-1912 timeframe started putting out their own, generally lower quality, card issues.

Either one of the deductions must be false, or National Licorice must be owned by the ATC. So I went searching.

National Licorice was a subsidiary of the American Tobacco Company. A November, 1907 issue of The Tobacco Worker contains much discussion of government action against the ATC, the case for the monopoly, and the companies involved. I will link rather than screen cap as there is much else here of interest for researchers beyond a single page, it goes into detail about the takeover of Bollman, the structure of the monopoly, and more. The part pertaining to National Licorice is on page 14 of the issue (page 305 in the pdf file of the compilation book here: https://books.googleusercontent.com/...KkC61ZBE6AH1-O.

It states that the Continental Company, which we have discussed in other threads as an ATC front, purchased the MacAndrews & Forbes firm, created a new firm of that name in New Jersey, and consumed the old firm as well as Mellor & Rittenhouse. Of the $3,000,000 worth of voting shares, the ATC owned $2,112,000. This company went into the business of importing licorice root and paste and selling licorice products. In 1902, MacAndrews & Forbes bought the Stamford Manufacturing Companies root and paste business, and Stamford agreed not to compete in that area of business.

In 1902, MacAndrews & Forbes (Owned by Continental, owned by American Tobacco) founded the National Licorice Company, which bought the businesses of Young & Smylie and F.B. & V.P. Scudder. Frederick Scudder seems to have been managing part of the company after the acquisition. National Licorice, their subsidiary, agreed "not to manufacture licorice paste to be used in tobacco products", i.e. a different subsidiary would be doing that part.

It is noted that two competitors were left by the end of 1902, and that the ATC's subsidiaries began to sell paste far under cost to drive them out of business.

So licorice's components were apparently used in tobacco, and licorice was dominated by the ATC as a result. The E229's were produced by the monopoly for a subsidiary firm (3 times removed from them), and thus the American Lithographic partners could and did produce cards for them.

[G1911]

This leaves D353. D353 is identical to E229, except for the different back. Attached is an example, E229 on the left and D353 on the right. These Koester Bread cards are more difficult than E229, which I wouldn't call easy.

Koester's cards must be:
1) Again, one of the previous deductions is wrong or

2) The cards are not from 1910-1911 but a few years later, a reprinting after the fall of the tobacco monopoly, like T214, T215, etc. by which time whatever agreement they had had with Duke wasn't an issue, or

3) Koester's was owned by an ATC owned firm or

4) The cards are a pirated issue, and somehow someone else stole the images and made cards with them.

I can find numerous ads and records of Koesters Bread in Baltimore in the mid teens and the early 1920's (they issued base ball pictures in 1921), they seem to have continued on for decades after this. According to a coupon they were founded in 1886. Not finding much in the 1910-1911 period yet.

[Pat R]

I haven't found anything on the D353's but here's a June 1916 ad for D1 cards and albums.

D1 Koester Bread Album adThe_Evening_Sun_Mon__Jun_12__1916_.jpg

[G1911]

While flipping through my cards this morning, it occurs that another deduction can be made.

The attached Coburn (scan stolen from previous owner) is from the proofing stage or a scrapped sheet. It is from very, very early in white border production, if it is not from the proofing stage. We know this because of the man at left. In the silver series, the man is fully drawn. Coburn is one of two cards with artistic changes; a small minority of Coburn's in early white border production (Mecca factory 649 only - Tolstoi was likely printed at some remove from the Mecca run; it was issued in March of 1911) have the man at left as a blue silhouette, like it is here on this card.

The upside down wrong back features Gans. An upside down wrong back isn't random. For it to happen, the sheet must be put in upside down, which means that the card on the front will dictate what card constitutes the wrong back that is upside down. A card on the left edge of the sheet won't have an upside down wrong back of a card from the middle of the sheet; it will be the card in the corresponding slot on the right side of the sheet.

Now that we know 92% of the sheet layout, we can see if this early white border production matches the silver sheet. It should be noted that, while I am quite confident I have the panels arranged correctly, it is possible final production was different. This is not the only T220 Silver proof sheet that would have been run; we can be sure it wasn't the last as they haven't tested the backs, the silver borders, and they corrected the error on Willie Beecher's card before they started actual production. The production sheet is probably the same layout, as it would take labor to 0 gain to redesign it, but this is a deduction and not a proven 100% fact. Some changes are very possible to have been made shortly after production began. Whether Corbett and Donovan were removed and replaced on the sheet with other cards (almost certainly not full panels of 8 DP'd), left as blanks, or printed and manually cut out/removed is a mystery to me.

Coburn is in the middle rows on the left edge. Gans is on the middle rows on the right edge. This sheet layout matches this upside wrong back (the only one I am aware of in this set) from the white borders. It is of course possible that this is mere coincidence, but it is statistically unlikely. The white borders were very probably produced using this same layout, on 2 sheets of 25 with the second sheet featuring the 25 new pictures and art style that was not present in the original wave. Wave printing and issue seems to have been how a lot of 50 card series were done; usually not so obvious because 1) they didn't change the borders and 2) we don't have uncut sheets of them but their are hints in how certain backs are only available in half of a series sometimes.

[G1911]

National Licorice, after the breakup of the ATC, ended up going into the tobacco business themselves directly. This ad is from 1924.

[steve B]

At a penny a pack I suspect those are candy cigarettes.

[G1911]

Originally Posted by steve B

At a penny a pack I suspect those are candy cigarettes.

That makes more sense. I didn’t know candy cigarettes was a thing until right now