T220 Silver - Uncut Edition

[G1911]

Page 1020 in the .pdf, 420 in the case file, a letter from R.j. Reynolds to Brett:

"Dear sirs,

We have requested the American Lithographic Co. to deliver to you ten sketches, one of John L. Sullivan, one of Admiral Bob Evans, one of Mark Twain, one of Sir Walter Raleigh, and six desig nated as A, B, C, D, E, and F.
Please quote us best price at which you can re produce these designs, as per specifications herein outlined, making us quotations for lithographic re production, as well as reproduction by the offset press method."

Again, it appears American Lithographic and Brett Lithographic are different companies - but only on paper. It makes no sense that American Lithographic would design images, and then send them, apparently for nothing, to Brett so that they could print them up for a customer and get paid instead. American lithographic was a large business who bought up competitors and was trying to get as much of the market as possible, not a routing charity. It seems to me another veiled wink, that they are separate companies to avoid government regulation but their business dealings indicate they really aren't fully separate firms. I don't want to get tunnel vision and locked into a theory, but every reference to the two I can find seems to follow this pattern

[G1911]

Pages 422 and 423 of the internal numbering of the case file have his original contract with Brett that was later amended to be commission only. He took a 5% commission on orders over $30,000, and a salary of $3,000 a year. He made quite a lot of money for the time. He agreed to:

"Fourth. The party of the second part [Mr. Fullgraff] has agreed and hereby agrees to accept the compensation aforesaid during the term aforesaid, and to engage in no other business and to do no other work for any person other than the party of the first part [Brett]."

Sure doesn't seem like this was really stuck too at all. Old Masters seems to have had him on the payroll at the same time, and American Lithographic apparently were paying him or had a bizarrely close relationship still. American Tobacco, who he was working with for 20 years by the time Brett put him on payroll, presumably wasn't hiring Brett Lithography to name, design, and create entire cigarette brands for them (why would anyone hire a lithography business to do this? Design the packaging, maybe, but the rest of it could not have been normal), so he almost certainly was getting something from them too.

[G1911]

" Mr. A. Kline, Cigarette Dept. American Tobacco Company,
#111-5th Avenue, New York City.

February 9, 1911.
Dear Sir,

We have carefully figured the cost of an edition of Actress Cards printed on satin size 1 3/4 x3. The scheme, as we understand it, is to use the same drawings as we used for the series of Actress Cards
made for the Fatima Cigarettes, except that the
back grounds shall be entirely eliminated. The
name of brand of cigarettes for which the satin
cards are to be used is to be printed across the top
edge of the satin, and the factory number on the
bottom edge of the satin. The designs to be in all
other respects the same as we made before. The
cost of those cards printed on satin furnished by
you and delivered collated in sets of twenty-five, in
an addition of one million and a half will be $2.00
per M. If we furnished the satin our price would
be $5.00 per M cards. W e are estimating on satin
of the quality of the satin we are enclosing here With.
Should you furnish the satin we would require twelve thousand yards of 24 inch goods.
We regret that the proofs are not finished as We hoped, so that they could be submitted to you today. We found it necessary to make changes in the back grounds of some of the cards so that you would get a correct impression of the way that they would look when finished, and this delayed the proving somewhat. You will have them, however, in a day or two."

These are the earliest silks referenced, and the only 'card' set of them, I think. The S version of T27? I don't know the Silks. Not sure what the price per "M" is, it clearly isn't per million.

[steve B]

Originally Posted by G1911

Pages 422 and 423 of the internal numbering of the case file have his original contract with Brett that was later amended to be commission only. He took a 5% commission on orders over $30,000, and a salary of $3,000 a year. He made quite a lot of money for the time. He agreed to:

"Fourth. The party of the second part [Mr. Fullgraff] has agreed and hereby agrees to accept the compensation aforesaid during the term aforesaid, and to engage in no other business and to do no other work for any person other than the party of the first part [Brett]."

Sure doesn't seem like this was really stuck too at all. Old Masters seems to have had him on the payroll at the same time, and American Lithographic apparently were paying him or had a bizarrely close relationship still. American Tobacco, who he was working with for 20 years by the time Brett put him on payroll, presumably wasn't hiring Brett Lithography to name, design, and create entire cigarette brands for them (why would anyone hire a lithography business to do this? Design the packaging, maybe, but the rest of it could not have been normal), so he almost certainly was getting something from them too.

I wonder if they handled it similarly to how the big box stores do some things like groceries. Where an outside vendor is responsible for stocking an aisle, including competitors products?

It's also not uncommon in manufacturing and printing for a customer to own the original art they paid for, (Or molds or other tooling) and the company stores it for convenience.

As an example, when the contract for stamps changed from one banknote company to another the dies plates etc all got sent to the new company.

Fascinating stuff.

Especially the bit Pat found about a rotary press using an aluminum plate before 1903. I had thought from what I've read that similar presses were used to print on tin, but not necessarily on paper.

https://www.aptpressdirect.com/blog/...printing-press

https://www.historyofinformation.com...hp?entryid=666

[G1911]

Originally Posted by G1911

Page 1020 in the .pdf, 420 in the case file, a letter from R.j. Reynolds to Brett:

"Dear sirs,

We have requested the American Lithographic Co. to deliver to you ten sketches, one of John L. Sullivan, one of Admiral Bob Evans, one of Mark Twain, one of Sir Walter Raleigh, and six desig nated as A, B, C, D, E, and F.
Please quote us best price at which you can re produce these designs, as per specifications herein outlined, making us quotations for lithographic re production, as well as reproduction by the offset press method."

Again, it appears American Lithographic and Brett Lithographic are different companies - but only on paper. It makes no sense that American Lithographic would design images, and then send them, apparently for nothing, to Brett so that they could print them up for a customer and get paid instead. American lithographic was a large business who bought up competitors and was trying to get as much of the market as possible, not a routing charity. It seems to me another veiled wink, that they are separate companies to avoid government regulation but their business dealings indicate they really aren't fully separate firms. I don't want to get tunnel vision and locked into a theory, but every reference to the two I can find seems to follow this pattern

Following up with more here,

"R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company,
Winston -Salem , N. C.

Gentlemen :
We beg to acknowledge receipt of your favor of
the 21st inst., and also acknowledge receipt of ten
sketches from the American Lithograph Company. We have taken a careful record of these sketches which will enable us to make you prices, and have today forwarded the sketches to the Forbes Lithograph Company, Boston, Mass., by express prepaid, and will send you a bill for the express charges in a day or two. We will within the next two or three days submit you our prices for reproducing the designs in accordance with your specifications.
Thanking you for an opportunity of figuring on this work for you, we remain,

Yours truly,
Brett Lithographic Company"

So... Fullgraff solicits R.J. Reynolds to print up some advertising pieces. Reynolds accepts after some queries. The images are then provided by American Lithographic to Brett Lithographic. Brett Lithographic then sends the pictures to Forbes Lithographic in Boston to do pre-production and full cost estimate on the items.

How many lithographic companies does it take to print a picture of John L. Sullivan? At least 3.

This again seems to suggest American Lithographic was regularly working through "other companies" to do print jobs.

I know we have multiple John L. collectors here. I'd love to see it if anyone knows of an R.J. Reynolds advertisement of Sullivan from the 1910's.

[Pat R]

Superb research and information Greg.

Here's a page on Forbes and another page that lists the number of employees that Forbes and some of the other lithograph company's had in 1889.

[IMG][/IMG]

[IMG][/IMG]

[G1911]

This is great stuff Pat. Even with the manual workflows of 1910 these aren’t small companies. Their size in 1889 had surely grown by this time as the advertising and printing businesses were in a boom. Does your book ever give an employee count for American Lithographic? My understanding has been they were the biggest of the east coast lithographers. Wondering how much bigger they are than these apparently semi-subsidiaries.

We’ve got several more names of people who are apparently key to day to day operations at these companies from these letters and the Hyland letter. I’ll see if I can find connections between them and American Lithographic as well. I think it is the business side that will lead us to water on the card stuff. I’m finding it pretty interesting in its own right anyways.

I also want to dig into the Porter suit, that Scot Reader makes brief reference to in Inside T206. This might give us a lot of information on the player contracts, which I’m hoping will identify more on the structure of the sets and how they worked, and also why certain cards in certain sets might be so difficult.

[G1911]

Here's some stuff on the Porter suit.

I only know of this because of Inside T206, which references it in a footnote but doesn't give much else. It says this is the only known time a T card subject actually sued over the use of their image.

Harry Porter was a subject in the first series of T218, one of the many Irish American Athletic Club members to appear. His card had to have been printed after February 7, 1910, judged by the back text on series 1 cards. Several dates of issue in 1910 are given in the ATC ledger, that are plausible. His card does not appear to have been pulled from production, he's a common card that seems as readily available as any other card to me.


I found a record of the case in an old government compilation of cases before the NY court that year: https://books.googleusercontent.com/...kJTWw6Kvg6qxwc.

Pages 871-873 of the book cover the Porter case. Porter claimed he did not give his permission for advertising and sued for damages. The text is largely about procedural nuance, and is a decision for November 1910 on an ATC appeal. The case seems to have moved fairly quickly, as this is only a few months after the card could have been issued. American Tobacco claims that Porter did indeed sign a release, on July 5, 1909. The court rules against ATC's procedural motion. There should be a prior and later court event on this case, I think. The exacts of this are probably more clear to our lawyers here than to myself.

The case (Porter v. American Tobacco Co.,125 N. Y. S. 710 (fol.71).) is referenced as precedent in several later decisions in the 1930's. All later references in the ensuing decades seem to be to this motion that Porter won, though this part of the suit does not address the larger issue on which the legal use of his image hinges - did Porter on or about July 5, 1909 give his written consent to American Tobacco, or not?

While interesting and a part of T218 history, I'm striking out on getting anything that tells us much, beyond what we can reasonably infer from the Ball and Hyland letters, of the larger context thus far.

[G1911]

Circling back to the original subject, which is frankly less interesting than this investigation into the ATC/AL partnership, I started digging into Mike Donovan as well, for some reason his card may be so oddly difficult.

Donovan was a fascinating guy on his own, about 1910 he was in his 60's and still prominent in sporting circles. He was a personal friend of Theodore Roosevelt and appeared routinely in the press as an expert on sport, fitness, health in old age, and all-around manliness. He was at that time, as his T220 notes, the boxing director of the New York Athletic Club, the prominent sportsmen organization that Fullgraff was also an active and dedicated member of, and still active in sparring.

Donovan appears to have been anti-tobacco. In a 1918 book compiling issues of a journal titled "Good Health", is a section featuring anti-tobacco statements from authorities on grounds "physical, mental, and moral". this includes a statement from Mr. Donovan (page 533, https://books.googleusercontent.com/...Arjon4_xydvp):


"Mike Donovan, formerly athletic director of the New York Athletic Club:

'Anybody who smokes can never hope to succeed in any line of endeavor, as smoking weakens the heart and lungs and ruins the stomach and affects the entire nervous system.

Physicians who have had much to do with alcoholic inebriates realize that there is a direct relationship between alcohol addiction and tobacco abuse. The first effect of tobacco smoking is stimulating, with a rise of blood pressure; and if the smoking be continued, the nerve cells are depressed. The depression is cumulative in the system of the smoker, and after a varying interval (of days, weeks or months) it creates an instinctive demand for the antidote to tobacco poisoning - and that is alcohol. The intemperate use of tobacco thus explains 75 per cent of all drink-habit cases. The alcoholic thirst is engendered and inflamed by smoke.

The real danger in smoking consists largely in the habit of inhalation whereby the volatilized poisons are brought into immediate contact with at least 1,000 square feet of vascular air-sac walls in the lungs, and are thus promptly and fully absorbed to be diffused into the blood and carried on their disastrous errand to the several organs of the body.

The world of today needs men, not those whose minds and will power have been weakened or destroyed by the desire and craving for alcohol and tobacco, but instead men with initiative and vigor, whose mentality is untainted by ruinous habits.

Every young man should aspire to take advantage of the opportunity which at some time during his life beckons him, and he should be ready with the freshness of youth and not enveloped in the fumes of an offensive and injurious cigarette.'"


There is hardly room for equivocation in this statement, 8 years after the T220 set was issued. If Donovan was passionately against smoking, it makes sense he would not want his image used to sell them. It also makes sense he would sign a general release for a club friend, that like Hyland's may not have mentioned tobacco at all. And it makes sense that this club friend may have persuaded him to reconsider and allow the use of his image, reinstating him in t220-2 white borders. And it makes sense that, as the boxing instructor at the club of which the architect of the card set was an active and dedicated member and apparently made friends everywhere he went, it is Donovan alone who gets two cards in that second issue.

Still does not explain the bizarre background change between the two issues of T220 to his card's artwork, but perhaps this has something to do with why he is so difficult.

On a completely unrelated note, this journal is fascinating as an insight into the leading health theories of a century ago on a whole host of issues. Perhaps I am simply easily entertained and sidetracked.

[G1911]

Originally Posted by G1911

Circling back to the original subject, which is frankly less interesting than this investigation into the ATC/AL partnership, I started digging into Mike Donovan as well, for some reason his card may be so oddly difficult.

Donovan was a fascinating guy on his own, about 1910 he was in his 60's and still prominent in sporting circles. He was a personal friend of Theodore Roosevelt and appeared routinely in the press as an expert on sport, fitness, health in old age, and all-around manliness. He was at that time, as his T220 notes, the boxing director of the New York Athletic Club, the prominent sportsmen organization that Fullgraff was also an active and dedicated member of, and still active in sparring.

Donovan appears to have been anti-tobacco. In a 1918 book compiling issues of a journal titled "Good Health", is a section featuring anti-tobacco statements from authorities on grounds "physical, mental, and moral". this includes a statement from Mr. Donovan (page 533, https://books.googleusercontent.com/...Arjon4_xydvp):


"Mike Donovan, formerly athletic director of the New York Athletic Club:

'Anybody who smokes can never hope to succeed in any line of endeavor, as smoking weakens the heart and lungs and ruins the stomach and affects the entire nervous system.

Physicians who have had much to do with alcoholic inebriates realize that there is a direct relationship between alcohol addiction and tobacco abuse. The first effect of tobacco smoking is stimulating, with a rise of blood pressure; and if the smoking be continued, the nerve cells are depressed. The depression is cumulative in the system of the smoker, and after a varying interval (of days, weeks or months) it creates an instinctive demand for the antidote to tobacco poisoning - and that is alcohol. The intemperate use of tobacco thus explains 75 per cent of all drink-habit cases. The alcoholic thirst is engendered and inflamed by smoke.

The real danger in smoking consists largely in the habit of inhalation whereby the volatilized poisons are brought into immediate contact with at least 1,000 square feet of vascular air-sac walls in the lungs, and are thus promptly and fully absorbed to be diffused into the blood and carried on their disastrous errand to the several organs of the body.

The world of today needs men, not those whose minds and will power have been weakened or destroyed by the desire and craving for alcohol and tobacco, but instead men with initiative and vigor, whose mentality is untainted by ruinous habits.

Every young man should aspire to take advantage of the opportunity which at some time during his life beckons him, and he should be ready with the freshness of youth and not enveloped in the fumes of an offensive and injurious cigarette.'"


There is hardly room for equivocation in this statement, 8 years after the T220 set was issued. If Donovan was passionately against smoking, it makes sense he would not want his image used to sell them. It also makes sense he would sign a general release for a club friend, that like Hyland's may not have mentioned tobacco at all. And it makes sense that this club friend may have persuaded him to reconsider and allow the use of his image, reinstating him in t220-2 white borders. And it makes sense that, as the boxing instructor at the club of which the architect of the card set was an active and dedicated member and apparently made friends everywhere he went, it is Donovan alone who gets two cards in that second issue.

Still does not explain the bizarre background change between the two issues of T220 to his card's artwork, but perhaps this has something to do with why he is so difficult.

On a completely unrelated note, this journal is fascinating as an insight into the leading health theories of a century ago on a whole host of issues. Perhaps I am simply easily entertained and sidetracked.

Found some more after reading Alpheus Greer/Marshall Stillman's 1918 biography of Donovan "Mike Donovan: The Making of A Man" which contains a chapter printing the comments of Donovan's many students about him (always full of praise, the man was either a Saint or these are awfully biased). Mr. E.W. Kearney reported:

"Abstaining from, I may say abhorring, both liquor and tobacco, he was never afraid to declare his principles in that direction, and I know he exerted great influence over many young men in causing them to do likewise. In short, he was a wonderful power for good, apart from his professional boxing capacity." (page 239).

Donovan is also quoted in the 1923 book "The Church and Tobacco" published by the "No-Tobacco Army" in its section of quotes form famous people. For those who believe Connie Mack's distaste of tobacco relates to Eddie Plank's T206 card, he is quoted right after Donovan's "A boy who smokes can never hope to succeed in any line of endeavor" (121). This quote also appears in other anti-tobacco works.

The 1917 Practical Education repeats an extended version of this Donovan quote, alongside assaults on smoking (The "little white slaver") from Frank Baker, Hughie Jennings, Walter Johnson, Clark Griffith, Ty Cobb, Connie Mack, and Red Dooin (pages 480-482). All but Mack sure didn't seen to have an issue with signing image rights away for big tobacco, and Cobb's hypocrisy in the harshness of his comments considering that he had his own brand is just absolutely astounding.

Several variations of Donovan's op-ed that I originally sourced in Good Health were published in other works for a number of years in the early 20th century. He is an oft-cited criticizer of smoking from the people very upset by the practice.

Greer's book makes frequent reference to Donovan's social life in the NYAC, the club for which Fullgraff served on a number of committees and was an active member of its social affairs. I highly doubt I will ever find a primary source document saying it to prove it beyond doubt, but Donovan's SP'ing and then reinstating into the set (with 2 cards even after reinsertion) seems best explained and most likely to be a combination of his distaste for tobacco and his probable friendship (at minimum, a club acquaintance) with the man making those cards.

I am not surprised there is a probable reason for the strange rarity (pulled, and put back again is not the normal pattern), but I am still surprised that the sheet layout is clearly not Donovan and Corbett being together on the sheet, but far apart. Deductively there is almost certainly a separate reason that Corbett was very short printed, and then reinstated also. Corbett I can find almost nothing relating to tobacco at all. Late in life he even had a radio show dedicated to health, but he never mentioned tobacco at all (Fields, "James J. Corbett", page 229).

[G1911]

Next up, the Frazier's. The Hyland letterhead lists Charles Frazier as treasurer, Charles W. Frazier as secretary of Brett Lithography.

volume 10 of American Biography: A New Cyclopedia published in 1922 (https://books.googleusercontent.com/...E067eDmxqjuXhl)

Charles William Frazier (1873-?) is the son of the former (1839-1921). The father was President of the East River Savings Bank, "and treasurer and director of Brett Lithographic Company" among other business interests, apparently a significant figure in New York banking for many decades.

"Charles Frazier" is referenced as the president of Brett lithography in 1917 (Printers Ink 100) and in 1919 (National Lithographer 26, 1919). In 1917 he is also elected President of The National Association of Employing Lithographers, with William Forbes as Vice President (Marketing Communications 100). Forbes name comes up a lot in trade organizations alongside the Fraziers.

Frazier the father is apparently also knowledgeable about lithography itself and is more than a money man for the banks. The Printing Art 23, from 1914 features an article on a lecture he gave about the technical aspects of Lithography and offset printing.

Several other trade journals and books tell us that Charles W. is the president of Brett Lithography by 1924. He is a co-founder of a trade organization, the Lithographic Technical Foundation, alongside the President of Forbes and other lithography companies and is not surprisingly chosen as treasurer. Also a member of the finance committee alongside William S. Forbes and executive committee (Page 42 of December 20, 1924 edition of The American Printer, found here: https://books.googleusercontent.com/...eG53vaurwKu7hQ)


I'm not succeeding on finding more from 1910 on Frazier's in relation to lithography and not banking. They are 2 of the 3 names on the official company letterhead, so obviously they played a significant role at the firm. It all suggests Brett Lithography was heavily controlled by the established banking powers in the city.

[Pat R]

Originally Posted by G1911

This is great stuff Pat. Even with the manual workflows of 1910 these aren’t small companies. Their size in 1889 had surely grown by this time as the advertising and printing businesses were in a boom. Does your book ever give an employee count for American Lithographic? My understanding has been they were the biggest of the east coast lithographers. Wondering how much bigger they are than these apparently semi-subsidiaries.

We’ve got several more names of people who are apparently key to day to day operations at these companies from these letters and the Hyland letter. I’ll see if I can find connections between them and American Lithographic as well. I think it is the business side that will lead us to water on the card stuff. I’m finding it pretty interesting in its own right anyways.

I also want to dig into the Porter suit, that Scot Reader makes brief reference to in Inside T206. This might give us a lot of information on the player contracts, which I’m hoping will identify more on the structure of the sets and how they worked, and also why certain cards in certain sets might be so difficult.

I haven't found anything in the book on an employee count but I do remember finding an article about work that ALC did for the government
I think it was for printing envelopes. I can't remember if it said anything about the employees but I do remember being impressed at the volume
they were printing. I'm trying to find it if I saved it but I did find this clip from Dec. 19 1905 on a copyright suit involving ATC and ALC.

[IMG][/IMG]

[IMG][/IMG]

[G1911]

Originally Posted by Pat R

I haven't found anything in the book on an employee count but I do remember finding an article about work that ALC did for the government
I think it was for printing envelopes. I can't remember if it said anything about the employees but I do remember being impressed at the volume
they were printing. I'm trying to find it if I saved it but I did find this clip from Dec. 19 1905 on a copyright suit involving ATC and ALC.

Interesting, it seems the ATC/ALC duo were getting in copyright trouble before the card sets even.

I haven't found much trying to just shortcut this and looking for Brett and American Lithography referenced together to find a smoking gun connection. I haven't found envelopes, but here is an order from the Department of Agriculture for 411,627 copies of a series of 8 illustrations and then 2 other illustrations in the same count. American and Brett Lithography are both listed as among the vendors for this order, on page 301 (https://www.google.com/books/edition...sec=frontcover).

The scale of business must have been huge, millions of cards in sets that aren't super common today were printed according the Lelands ledger, large orders like this seem abundant. And Fullgraff only got commission on orders of $30,000 or more, at least for a time, which was a very large sum amount of money in that period.

I think what we are learning is that American Lithography did not actually "gradually combine" the activities of all their subsidiaries as the book says. The reference in the next paragraph, that "The American Lithographic company produced all the products that had been made by its component companies, including cigar box labels, posters, trade cards, pamphlets and book illustrations" seem to be closer to what we are finding. They are not so much the actual printer as the producer and orchestration of a whole host of clandestine subsidiaries or very friendly partners, producing art and images and sourcing much of the actual printing work to these 'other companies', even splitting specific jobs between different sub-parts of their network. Perhaps it is better to think of ALC as the producer and one of many printers among their component companies, not so much the actual printer of all of it as is generally said within the hobby.

[Pat R]

Originally Posted by G1911

Interesting, it seems the ATC/ALC duo were getting in copyright trouble before the card sets even.

I haven't found much trying to just shortcut this and looking for Brett and American Lithography referenced together to find a smoking gun connection. I haven't found envelopes, but here is an order from the Department of Agriculture for 411,627 copies of a series of 8 illustrations and then 2 other illustrations in the same count. American and Brett Lithography are both listed as among the vendors for this order, on page 301 (https://www.google.com/books/edition...sec=frontcover).

The scale of business must have been huge, millions of cards in sets that aren't super common today were printed according the Lelands ledger, large orders like this seem abundant. And Fullgraff only got commission on orders of $30,000 or more, at least for a time, which was a very large sum amount of money in that period.

I think what we are learning is that American Lithography did not actually "gradually combine" the activities of all their subsidiaries as the book says. The reference in the next paragraph, that "The American Lithographic company produced all the products that had been made by its component companies, including cigar box labels, posters, trade cards, pamphlets and book illustrations" seem to be closer to what we are finding. They are not so much the actual printer as the producer and orchestration of a whole host of clandestine subsidiaries or very friendly partners, producing art and images and sourcing much of the actual printing work to these 'other companies', even splitting specific jobs between different sub-parts of their network. Perhaps it is better to think of ALC as the producer and one of many printers among their component companies, not so much the actual printer of all of it as is generally said within the hobby.

The page in Lelands shows there was an order filled for 40 million fish cards by Fullgraff and/or Brett in 10 weeks. If this is accurate how many t206 cards were printed over a 2+ year period. Scot Reader estimated 270 or 370 million in his insidet206 publication that could be a very conservative estimate if the fish numbers are true.