New evidence of T206 expanded 350/460 series cards

[tedzan]

Scot to your......
"That is why I am surprised that the superprints are possible with the apple green Sovereign 350 (which otherwise appears
only on 350/460 RP subjects) and are not, as far as we know, possible with the forest green Sovereign 350 (which appears
only on 350-only subjects)."

1st......I have had or seen multiples of the 6 super-prints with the SOVEREIGN 350 back. And every back is printed with the
apple green color. This surprises me, too....as we know that these 6 subjects were originally 350-only series cards.

2nd......Let's examine these back scans. There are 3 different shades of green on the SOVEREIGN backs, according to the
series their fronts appear in. A forest green, a candy apple green, and a normal green.

3rd......The AB 350 framed back appears to have been printed with two different shades of green. The stylized frame and
the "Base Ball Series..350 Subjects" lettering are a lighter green. Similar to the apple green ink of the SOV 350 ("350/460")
backs. While the "AMERICAN BEAUTY CIGARETTES" lettering is a darker green.
The bi-color printing of this AB back may explain the subsequent No Framed backs of the American Beauty backs (350 and
460)......as they simply eliminated the printing stage of the frame.

Scans of AB and SOV backs reflecting their different series........

......................350-only........................"350/460"...........................460-only

.....................350-only..........................350/460...................350/460 or 460-only


Is there a possible correlation between the light green color of the backs of the 66 cards in the SOVEREIGN "350/460"
series and the light green color of the FRAME design on the backs of the AMERICAN BEAUTY 350 cards ?

It's anyone's guess....however, let's consider these coinciding factors......

(A)....The 192 cards issued (Summer of 1910) with the AMERICAN BEAUTY 350 (frame) backs were available quite late
in the 350-only run.

(B)....Also, American Litho. started launching its 350/460 series cards about this time period.

(C)....And, they started this extension of certain subjects from the 350 series into the 460 series by initially selecting
the 6 super-prints....since they printed them with the SOVEREIGN 460 backs.



TED Z

[teetwoohsix]

Ted,here is the back of my Chase dark cap-please excuse the background.I just noticed some of the 460 back scans have more of the forrest green,this one appears to be more of the apple green.

[jimonym]

I think there’s a fundamental point we need to keep in mind with American Beauty backed T206s. It’s the obvious one: they are significantly narrower than all other T206 cards. And that must have distinguished the way they were printed.

Think of it this way. Two horizontally adjacent cards on a sheet normally had a quarter inch of white space between them (you can measure this on any severely off-center card that shows parts of two fronts), which when cut down the middle created the side borders for two cards.

So a normal (i.e. non-American Beauty) sheet was laid out something like this (the red lines show where the cuts would be made):


An American Beauty sheet would have looked like this (i.e. scrunched together):


Now, one could argue that ALC used the first pictured layout and made extra cuts to trim the cards down the proper size and scrapped the little slits of paper that were left (shown in red), like this:


I wondered about this for a long time, until I saw the Malarkey card below. I know it’s a small image, but you can clearly see, especially if you look at the wavy brackets, that there’s no extra space between the two designs, meaning that only one cut was made to get the card to the right size. So they must have used a layout like sample sheet 2. Which means they used different printing plates to print American Beauty cards.



The similarity in green inks between American Beauty and Sovereign may indicate they were printed concurrently or close in time, but they must have been printed from different plates. And to me that makes connecting American Beauty to any other brand tricky. Not impossible, but tricky.

[cfc1909]

Here is a Cycle and it too is pretty close

Smithb.jpg


Clayton-your Sovereign 460 is the regular forest green.

[teetwoohsix]

Thanks Jim,the photo does show somewhat lighter than looking at it in actuality.This is the only Sovereign backed card I have.I appreciate the help!!

[tedzan]

Can you enlarge your Malarkey scan to match Jim's CYCLE scan ?

Because I don't see a measurable difference in the gap between adjacent frames of the AMERICAN BEAUTY back vs. the
adjacent frames of the CYCLE back.

If there is no difference, then (as you said)......"ALC used the first pictured layout and made extra cuts to trim the cards
down the proper size and scrapped the little slits of paper".


The designs of all the various Tobacco back's framing width is 1 1/4 inches wide. Since the AB cards are trimmed down to
1 3/8ths inches wide, this may explain why ALC eliminated the FRAME in their subsequent 350/460 and 460-only AMERICAN
BEAUTY backs. On many cards, given the printing and cutting tolerances, the frame design was being partially cut out with
the narrower card.

The real mystery that still remains is....why the AB card's width were trimmed down an 1/8th inch ?

As, the AMERICAN BEAUTY packs contained 10 (standard size) cigarettes; therefore, they were no smaller in size than the
PIEDMONT, SWEET CAPORAL, etc.



TED Z

[ethicsprof]

Ted,
I have these packs and there is absolutely no difference in size.
The mystery of the reason for the smaller AB card remains---
but is most enticing!

great work

best,
barry

[tedzan]

I listed your T-packs in the following order....as, they appear more impressive. I hope that's fine with you.

American Beauty
Drum(pouch)......(with the Drum card)
El Principe de Gales
Hassan......T202
Helmar......(332 stamp)
Kimball......1883 pack
Mecca......T201
Old Mill
Piedmont
Pirate......T215 (British issue)
Recruit......2 different factories related to T207
Sweet Caporal
Turkey Red......T3
__________________________________________________ _____________________________________


I only have these two T-packs......to complement my T206 Piedmont set

Piedmont (ATC factory 25 VA)
Piedmont (L&M factory 42 NC)

I'm looking for the following T-packs to complement my 4 additional T206's......

American Beauty (factory 42 NC)......near complete AB 460 subset (61 cards)

Sovereign......complete (407 cards)

Sweet Caporal (factory 30)......minus Plank & Wagner (otherwise 467 cards complete)

Sweet Caporal (factory 649)......complete subset of 35 cards



Best regards ole buddy

TED Z