When a proof is a proof

[barrysloate]

Rob- if memory serves, I think Keith O. wrote an article about them. Can anyone confirm this?

[Abravefan11]

Originally Posted by barrysloate

Rob- if memory serves, I think Keith O. wrote an article about them. Can anyone confirm this?

Keith wrote an article about the eight Southern League proofs for VCBC. "Eight Men In"

[barrysloate]

Thanks Tim. I don't recall if he had a theory about them, but I do think he came pretty close to identifying all or most of the players.

[Abravefan11]

He did identify them all. If you do a search for Southern League and find the thread I did about Joe Jackson I believe I listed them in a later post.

I don't recall if he had a theory about their exclusion but I will check my VCBC when I get home later tonight if no one else posts before.

[DixieBaseball]

Barry - I have not been able to connect all the dots, but research indicates there seems to be some possible correlation with the time period around Chattanooga team leaving the Sally League (1909 C League Champions) and entering the 1910 (A) Southern Association via purchase by Andrews & Patten of the Little Rock franchise which resided in the Southern Assoc. for years. (1908-Tris Speaker - L.R.) They bought the Little Rock franchise, moved it to Chattanooga and then bumped the team from C League to A League, thus possibly bringing Alcock and Meek into interest for production in the T206 set. Alcock & Meek were 2 of the better players for the Lookouts, but a lot of folks may not know that Al Demaree ended up playing at the end of the season in 1909 for the Lookouts (38 games) and helped push them to the Sally Championship. Al came over from Savannah who was a competitor in the Sally league which created a lot of controversy around the Lookouts winning the League in 1909. (Augusta protested) Somehow moving from the Sally to the Southern Assoc probably pushed these 2 guys into the spotlight, and they nearly were distributed in the T206 set. Demaree is featured in the T210-8 set, but Alcock and Meek are not, so if we could match up the timelines for releases of the T206 SLer's and T210 set, I believe that would possibly give us some answers.

I have never read the KO article, and would love to read it to compare notes if anyone has it.... (I believe Keith also owns these 8 SL proofs, right !?)

The players for the proofs are :

Alcock, Meek - Chattanooga (Not featured in the T210-8 series, but both played partial seasons for the Lookouts who are featured in T210-8 series)
Dwyer, Lee, Roth - Jacksonville (Dwyer & Lee featured in T210-1 series) (Roth not featured in the T210 set)
Osteen, Pepe - Montgomery (Both featured in T210-8 Series)
Mayberry - Danville (Featuered in T210-2 series)

*Pictured below is Alcock (Top 2nd from left) and Meek (far top right) This PC is dated 5-17-09 on the back, so the season was only a few months in, and this is why Demaree is not in the PC since he did not join until the last 38 games of the 1909 season. --- Somehow with all of this info, we should be able to possibly narrow down the production dates of the SL Proofs, perhaps !?

[barrysloate]

Excellent research Jeremy, thanks. And you are correct about ownership (I guess it's not really a secret).

[Abravefan11]

Originally Posted by barrysloate

I don't recall if he had a theory about them...

Here is the section of Keith's "Eight Men In" article which he gives some of his thoughts as to why the 8 proofs were not included in the T206 set. Without going into a long post I'll just say that I don't agree with several points in this section of the article. I do however have great respect for Keith as a collector, researcher, and writer.

[barrysloate]

Thanks Tim. What points do you disagree with?

[Abravefan11]

If I am understanding his points correctly I disagree with the following:

"In short, these six men would've been headline-makers in the Southern Association and South Atlantic League early in 1909, and would have been ideal choices for a mid-season supplement to the regional cards already issued, most of which depict the stars of 1908."

First I believe the 48 Southern League players included in the set, as well as the 8 proof cards were selected in early 1909 prior to or just after the seasons starting for the Southern Association and South Atlantic League. Note Dwyer is depicted with Jacksonville and was traded to Columbia in early July.

Second concerning the "mid-season supplement", 34 of the 48 that did make the set were first issued in August and September of 1909 as the seasons were wrapping up. The additional 14 cards along with the other 34 were printed in the first run of the 350 series in very late 1909 or early 1910. As I have said these 14 were not a supplement to the first 34 printed but part of the 48 decided on in early 1909.

[mrvster]

Leon,

not even close to yours not a true "proof"....but my Matty "proof"

thanks Martin!

[Jaybird]

This is the stuff that really gets me going. Beautiful cards. Thanks for posting and sharing the knowledge. I love reading about all the behind the scenes stuff.

Nice strip, Leon. Your strip makes me think... If someone had cut that strip apart, the middle cards wouldn't have the telltale crosshairs. Of course, they would still be reversed but wouldn't be quite so easy to spot.

Just makes me think a treasure hunter could stumble upon one.

[steve B]

The crosshairs are usually registration marks. Nearly every multi-color printed item has them on the paper before trimming to final size. Plus a lot of other marks.

The ones on the T206 proofs seem to me to be more layout oriented. In other words, marks used to make sure the location of the corresponding colors were exactly lined up on the stone. Once the stone was considered finished, they'd be erased from the stone.

To me proofs are fascinating. They show a portion of the entire process for making the final product. Some places do a lot of proofing. Topps has a vast array of different sorts of proofs. Some for the design pahse, some for the production phase. A lot of the final lining up Bridwell mentioned is done on the press with the regular production plates or stones. The sheets produced can be either nearly perfect or truly horrible. The shop I worked for usually had it near perfect first time, and perfect in less than 10 sheets. They also did nearly no proofing, any that I saw were photographic developed from the final sheet of negatives.

Not prewar, but here's one that crosses that proof/regular card boundary.


This is from the corner of what's called a "make ready" sheet. The magenta is printed a bit low. At the lower right are a couple lines that are registration marks. They should be printed right on top of each other. The torn top right corner is the special part. In order to keep the make ready sheets separated from the ones that will become releaseable product we used to tear off a corner of one sheet as a marker. Apparently Topps did the same thing. You can see the blue of the batting helmet printed onto the torn surface. It's not bleed through, as the card is printed on a surfaced board stock. The surfacing prevents the ink from soaking in, which keeps the image crisp.

So it's a production card, on the production material, printed from the same plates. But it's also partly a proof, since it was used to test the press adjustment. (Plus it's got the wrong back, printed lower than the front)
I'd like to think they went back and did a bit more adjusting. The shop I worked for would have considered this unacceptable registration. But I've seen enough 82 Topps to know better.

Steve B

[rp12367]

Steve B...Thanks for the insight on the printing process.

[Ease]

Originally Posted by rp12367

Steve B...Thanks for the insight on the printing process.

+1 Great info. Thanx!

[Rob D.]

Originally Posted by steve B

The crosshairs are usually registration marks. Nearly every multi-color printed item has them on the paper before trimming to final size. Plus a lot of other marks.

The ones on the T206 proofs seem to me to be more layout oriented. In other words, marks used to make sure the location of the corresponding colors were exactly lined up on the stone. Once the stone was considered finished, they'd be erased from the stone.

To me proofs are fascinating. They show a portion of the entire process for making the final product. Some places do a lot of proofing. Topps has a vast array of different sorts of proofs. Some for the design pahse, some for the production phase. A lot of the final lining up Bridwell mentioned is done on the press with the regular production plates or stones. The sheets produced can be either nearly perfect or truly horrible. The shop I worked for usually had it near perfect first time, and perfect in less than 10 sheets. They also did nearly no proofing, any that I saw were photographic developed from the final sheet of negatives.

Not prewar, but here's one that crosses that proof/regular card boundary.


This is from the corner of what's called a "make ready" sheet. The magenta is printed a bit low. At the lower right are a couple lines that are registration marks. They should be printed right on top of each other. The torn top right corner is the special part. In order to keep the make ready sheets separated from the ones that will become releaseable product we used to tear off a corner of one sheet as a marker. Apparently Topps did the same thing. You can see the blue of the batting helmet printed onto the torn surface. It's not bleed through, as the card is printed on a surfaced board stock. The surfacing prevents the ink from soaking in, which keeps the image crisp.

So it's a production card, on the production material, printed from the same plates. But it's also partly a proof, since it was used to test the press adjustment. (Plus it's got the wrong back, printed lower than the front)
I'd like to think they went back and did a bit more adjusting. The shop I worked for would have considered this unacceptable registration. But I've seen enough 82 Topps to know better.

Steve B

Great information, Steve.

[Clutch-Hitter]

Very interesting Steve B. Thanks.
___________________

My bad for impulsively misdirecting the thread with the 1920 big head cross-hairs. Like some of yours Leon, several have numbers hand written on the top front also.

Very neat thread!