T206 printing mystery

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Posted By: Joann

Yeah - that's the one I was talking about in my last paragraph! Duh. I completely forgot there was a Wagner in it.

It is not impossible that the horizontal strip exists. If there were a master coil with columns of single players, it would be easy - even likely for a variety of reasons - that someone setting it up or whatever would cut across the coil for a horizontal strip.

But the theory says that the strip coils were then shipped to a whole different place - even different states, to have the back put on. So if someone making the master coil cut across for a horizontal strip, the back would be blank.

The only way, if this were all true, for the horizontal strip to have a printed back would be for someone to cut the strip from the master coil (definitely possible) AND somehow get it all the way up to wherever the backs were being either printed or laminated on.

Now it's getting more unlikely, because the horizontal strip, cut for whatever reason and arguably non-salable at the time and probably not intended for sale, would have to have been in two different places and maybe two states. Not only that, but someone would have to figure out how to get the strip in that configuration to run through a piece of equipment that's tooled to run a strip only an inch wide. Either that or hand stamp each back on the horiz strip.

So I guess I'm still in the same place - if the horiz strip is blank backed, I'll think that Ted's post has genuine possibiility. If it has ad back, then the concurrent improbabilities start adding up and I think that manufacture method would be unlikely.

J