AB width?

[toppcat]

Originally Posted by Abravefan11

American Beauty backs were cut at least one additional time and this lead to even greater variance in their sizes.

Tim-Interesting comment and something that illustrates just how strange the AB sizing issue is. I have long thought the cards where shipped in uncut sheets along with the cigarette box flats and cut at the factory but if so why would another cut be made, presumably at the AB factory? Crazy monster.....

[Abravefan11]

Originally Posted by toppcat

I have long thought the cards where shipped in uncut sheets along with the cigarette box flats and cut at the factory but if so why would another cut be made, presumably at the AB factory?

From studying the confirmed front/back combination patterns we know sheets of front images were printed and then had the back ads applied. In the 350 Series the same printed front image sheets had AB 350 Frame, Cycle 350, Broad Leaf 350 and Drum ads applied. In the 350-460 group the AB 350 No Frame and Drum ads were applied to the same front image sheets. And lastly in the 460 Series it's possible the AB 460 and Uzit backs were applied to the same front image sheets.

This is important when studying the American Beauty cards because it shows the sheet configuration was not any different than any other T206. The narrower width had to come from at least one additional cut to reduce the width.

Why were they cut again? I don't know for sure but whatever the reason it wasn't a short lived practice that was abandoned. They continued with the extra cut through three different production groups. And given the extra labor required to thin the cards I have to believe they would have gone to a simpler solution had there been one or abandoned it all together had it not been imperative.

[tedzan]

Originally Posted by toppcat

Interesting comment and something that illustrates just how strange the AB sizing issue is. I have long thought the cards where shipped in uncut sheets along with the cigarette box flats and cut at the factory but if so why would another cut be made, presumably at the AB factory? Crazy monster.....

Sorry to differ with you ole buddy....but, I can't imagine that uncut sheets of T206's were shipped to the Tobacco factories and cut at those facilities. The workers
at these factories were low-wage laborers who essentially sorted and packaged cigarettes (and other related tobacco products) as they rolled off the machinery.

In my opinion, the cutting of the cards was done professionally at American Litho. (ALC) in NYC. Actually, I wish your scenario was true. Because, then there would
be a higher probability of finding some uncut sheets of T206's out there in the hinterlands.


Regarding the narrower American Beauty cards, sometime back I posted an idea that ALC possibly printed this series with an additional card across a given sheet.
So that, in the cutting process, each card was narrower by approx. 1/16th of an inch.

Or, perhaps the factory producing the American Beauty cigarettes originally told ALC that they were intending to market a narrower pack containing 8 cigarettes.
Therefore, ALC anticipated this change by cutting the cards narrower.

However, we know that this was not so........here is a standard 10-cigarette pack.




TED Z

[toppcat]

Hi Ted

No offense taken-these AB's to me are one of the enduring mysteries of the Monster!