"Scrap" and general hobby terms, possible revision?

[steve B]

Some production cards still show the marks used to align the transfers, although most don't.
Still more show evidence of the erasure of those marks from the plate.
Those marks were at one time on every instance of every card on the plate. *
On the card posted in the original thread, On the right about halfway up is the tiny remnant of the right alignment mark in brown
At left, a thinning of the borderlne where the mark was erased a bit too much
Bottom center the remnant of the lower mark.
Top center, they either didn't have the mark or more likely got the erasure just right.


The other example has no obvious remnants of marks.

The registration between yellow and brown is the same for both examples shown making it likely they are from the same sheet.

Printing brown and yellow together even with red on occasion is not at all typical for production. Yellow would be the first color, Brown would be nearly the last, just before black.
Yellow with a darker color is typical for a progressive proof, even one pulled from the production plates.
A couple examples of progressive proofs

https://cigarlabelblog.wordpress.com...ressive-proof/

https://www.abebooks.com/servlet/Boo...hoCzykQAvD_BwE

https://www.artoftheprint.com/artist...tho_proofs.htm


The group of factory 30 cards is like you say, probably production cards that didn't get the factory change overprint.
I wouldn't call them scrap, because they are essentially finished product with no problems that would make them scrap. I believe they were leftover once the order for overprinted backs was completed.

But the Yellow/Browns from nearly every angle appear as progressive proofs from a production plate. A step that would be necessary to ensure that each plate was laid out correctly.
It's possible but unlikely that they're progressive proofs from an intermediate master. But since they represent a full width group, I would doubt that very much.
I think it's less likely that they're simply unfinished production cards.

*It's possible they used several to create an intermediate master, but I haven't seen proof of that, and it wouldn't be an easy thing to prove. There's also some evidence against that idea.

[Ronnie73]

The little bits of registration lines don't mean anything to me, because I have a bunch of cards that still have visable areas. I don't think the print runs were super strict. If the tax code matched the next batch, the extra sheets just went into those piles to be cut into single cards and inserted into packs. This was during a time when they would avoid making a lot of waste. That's why there are cards with multiple printing passes from different plates and even different jobs. There's proof of that. I believe anything that didn't print right, was put to the side to dry, and then used to line up the future jobs, until there were so many ink passes, that you couldn't tell what was what anymore. As far as the full color No Print's, and the Yellow/Browns, They both didn't get their scroll overprint. Both types were produced during the same time period. They were both hand cut from a couple sheets each. I believe it was just a father that took a couple sheets right before they were being loaded into the printer to receive their overprint, and he probably ran a couple sheets with whatever was set up at that moment and took them home to his kids. The colors chosen, don't make sense, so why do it? Unless it was just for a workers kid. They had no value and missing some colors or a tax overprint, wouldn't mean anything to a kid back in 1911. No T206's are known with single color passes, like you can find on Topps cards from the 1960's and 1970's. Actual proof examples would resemble the eight southern league cards that were never issued that are owned by Keith Olbermann. There are also production cards that have the same exact registration marks, which were mockup's, also known as proofs, but these proofs are always full color, so I don't see the need to print single color passes, unless something was not printing correctly, and they needed to see each color one at a time. If they did, where are they? In 2011 I made a list of the cards that could exist with the missing overprint scroll. I figured they could exist if someone removed a sheet or two, before the overprint was applied, and then they took the sheet or sheets home with them. It took me 3 years to find my first two examples. You can even see on some of them where someone used a pencil to draw a grid, to help cut them into singles. If they were proofs and wanted them cut into singles, they would have just used the clamp with the cutting blade. No uneven cuts. It was just a guy trying to be a good dad to his kids. 112 years later, and many of the cards still exist. I guess we will have to wait to hear some other opinions.

[G1911]

I apologize if I've missed something, but I'm not really seeing why we would assume it is a proof rather than just from a sheet that wasn't finished. I see this all the time, a card that isn't complete being labelled as a proof. I have thousands of T cards with the alignment marks by the frame borders, they were included in productions long after proofing. T cards we can say are definitely proofs are beyond rare, there are very very few of them still around.

[Ronnie73]

Originally Posted by G1911

I apologize if I've missed something, but I'm not really seeing why we would assume it is a proof rather than just from a sheet that wasn't finished. I see this all the time, a card that isn't complete being labelled as a proof. I have thousands of T cards with the alignment marks by the frame borders, they were included in productions long after proofing. T cards we can say are definitely proofs are beyond rare, there are very very few of them still around.

I think part of the argument as in questioning, and not an actual verbal argument, is that the Yellow/Brown scraps are like a set of instructions, to help the printers know which stone and color is first, second, third, and so on. But we already agree that the brown would be added towards the end, and shouldn't be on the scraps. Plus if they were proofs, they wouldn't need the back to be printed. As far as I know, the cards with the full registration marks on all four sides, are blank backs. The same for the nameless proofs also. If they were just Yellow, with blank backs, then I would be more likely to call them proofs. It's possible we may never know. But in my mind, the simplest answer is more likely the right answer, and it was just some partially printed sheets that were taken home by a worker.

[Leon]

I think the term "proof" is used way, way too much in our hobby. Colgans square cards are NOT proofs. They are a separate set. Collectors/TPGs throw that term around without knowing what the definition is!

Not a T206, but probably a scrap, or an unfinished card that got chunked.

[atx840]

Great thread. Some of my fav "scraps"

[Leon]

Nice Chris. Those are labeled correctly. Great proof card.
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