T220 Silver - Uncut Edition

[G1911]

That's how my math is coming out on the sheet size, Pat. And it assumes that that the left edge was just cut off and that Driscoll represents the furthest left row, otherwise it is even wider. Driscoll's left edge is definitely handcut. It's certainly a deductive leap to assign it as the left edge. I thought there was a significant chance this was more than one sheet, but I'm much more strongly believing it is indeed a 5x5 array at this point as the likeliest size. I would have thought there were less than 200 cards a sheet before this find.


I'm not surprised if they were split between factories. This reference here may be something out of the norm, a set switching location because of a literal fire burning out a plant might have produced uncommon behavior for a time, if it is not metaphor for a facility being overworked and unable to meet quota. it would seem to suggest some very close business relationship between Old Masters and Brett Litho at the least. I would not be surprised at all if T206, the biggest set and possibly the one produced over the longest time, was at multiple locations. This would certainly seem to increase the likelihood that this was the case. I am surprised that this possibly was not an ATC/AL partnership at all, and they were just one of several contracted printers. The Ball Letter would suggest T206 was done by one company, at any number of locations, but one company. But I can find nothing that these other firms were part of American Lithographic. Makes some sense that they could have had quiet subsidiaries in the political context of 1910. This possibility throws a curveball if true. I can find almost nothing on "Old Masters" at all - or Fulgraff.


I've been buying T220-1 pretty heavily for a long time. I don't believe there is a double printing situation going on with what I've seen over the years, where Donovan and Corbett were pulled and another panel substituted in their place and thus being roughly twice as common. The known Donovan's and Corbett's seem like issued cards. It makes sense to me it's just like the Graziano, cards pulled and not supposed to be issued, but of course if it's a manual removal process before shipment to factory 649 it's going to be imperfect. Such a manual process doesn't seem out of place in 1910. What still makes absolutely no sense to me is why? Perhaps with the Porter lawsuit, they were more careful about getting signed contracts in place and Donovan and Corbett hadn't yet signed, but did before the T220-2 issue. there are reasonable explanations for why they might be pulled. I can think of none for why Donovan had like 1/3 of the card art redone, the background beyond the stands is completely different between the two parts of the T220 issue. If a plate broke, you wouldn't redo the painting it was based on and then redo a plate. If the painting was somehow lost or damaged and you had to redo the image, there would be differences, perhaps subtle but clearly different, in the other 2/3 of the art. I can still think of no reasonable expiation at all for this element. Usually we have an abundance of ideas and a lack of evidence, but here I've got no idea even.