Those T206 alignment marks and what they can tell us(long)

[steve B]

Yeah I know, another T206 thread. But I hope this is a "good" one.
I have a sheet layout idea, and I will need some help in the form of high resolution scans to verify it. 800-1200Dpi gets the level of detail I need.

Some background: Some time ago I said I thought that each position on a sheet would eventually identifiable. Checking my few doubles at the time I found no differences. But that got me looking and I came across these cards of Batch.


There are some differences, and they're both from the same series. Seeing the post in the other thread that showed the layout of the stone with the same negative then removing the layout marks made the rest clear.
(I've seen some other readily identifable sheet positions too, so it's not just one card)

When I went looking for a group of cards to look at I found a surprising thing.
Using the superset spreadsheet I found a small group of cards that fit a particular patern. All are series 150, with no 649 overprint and only shown with El Principe or Hindu as an available back. A couple notable rarities seem to fit the pattern as well.
Ames hands at chest
Brown chicago
brown cubs on shirt
burch batting
Donlin fielding
Doyle throwing
Evers cubs on shirt
Magie
Pattee
Pelty
Reulbach glove showing
Schulte front view
Wagner Pitt

This group even without the Magie and Wagner doesn't fit most of the sheet layout ideas I've heard.
Looking at this group another interesting thing is that except for Brown Cubs, Magie and Wagner they're grouped nearly together in Scott readers top 150. Wagner and Magie are rare of course, but Brown Cubs isn't in the top 150.

Assuming the research showing the presses at ALC having an 18 inch track is correct, many of the current ideas don't work well as they don't fit comfortably in 18 inches if at all.
A common paper size is 18x12. I'm still checking to be sure that was true in 1909.

What does fit well on 18x12 is either a 12x4 layout or an 8x6 layout with bit of margin on all sides which is both good practice and shown by the Sweet Caporal cards with enough room for the factory number at the side or bottom of the back
Both are 48 card layouts.

Three of these cards are shown without EP as a possible back.
Ames, Doyle, and Schulte.
Obviously Magie and Wagner as well.

My thought is that the sheets consisted of four players each, likely 6 of each. Magie And Wagner were obviously withdrawn, requiring that the stones either be modified or completely redone.
Brown cubs replaced Both Magie and Wagner, leading to its being more common and not rating a spot in the top 150.

the reason I think it was 4 rather than 8?
Three of the cards are rated in the upper 70's through 90's in the top 150 while the rest are solidly in the 60's with one 59th
Again except Wagner, Magie and Brown cubs.
Those odd ones out are so far off from ech other that having 12 on a sheet with 2 replaced by Brown and a combination of other already included players seems wrong. I don't think the Magie and Wagner are all that close in rarity, and I think it would have been too much work to redo the stones twice during one print run.

For this to be right, there would have to be either 6 or 12 identifiable differences for each card. 6 if the stones were partially reworked, 12 if they were completely redone. These differences would also have to correlate with back differences since all the positions would have an equivalent back position.

Complicating this is that none of the 13 cards are shown as confirmed with El Principe on the spreadsheet, so other layouts including unbalanced ones are possible. I haven't checked TedZs lists yet.

There also may be a complicating issue involving the Plank and regional distribution, but it's complex and I haven't put enough thought into that yet.

I have had a good look at whatever Magie scans I can find, and even from small scans I'm seeing at least 3 different fronts that do match up with different backs. The details will have to wait for a results thread.

A couple things to get out of the way.
None of this idea would have been possible without the work of lots of people over a few decades. everyone that contributed to the superset spreadsheet, Scott Reader, and most of the people on this board.

Second, I want to make clear that I do NOT think any of the tiny differences should be considerd a variation or be catalog listed. If someone decides to collect them, that's great, but it should remain a very niche specialty. They're interesting as artifact of the production process and may provide a solid look at the sheet layouts but going beyond that isn;t for everyone (Although I wouldn't mind seeing a collection of 6 different Magies)

So email me scans or links to scans and keep them coming. Hopefully we can gather enough to prove or disprove this idea.

Steve B

[Jantz]

Hi Steve

Interesting information. Thanks for posting it.

If I can help in any way, just let me know.


Jantz

[atx840]

Excellent work Steve, Ill send over any scans with printer marks. For what its worth here are known stacked players, there is a Pickering/Myers which we do not know the Myers pose as well Jantz has a new card combination that we are waiting on.

I should have the known side-by-side cards group later this week.

[T206Collector]

Neat image.... how do you reconcile those with the miscuts that show the card repeated top/bottom or side/side?

[steve B]

The image Chris has done is a great way of tracking the double name cards that are known. It also shows how complex things probably became later on, as Lundgren Cubs has two different cards above and Cicotte has two different below.
None of the ones found so far have been from this group. I might expect that other series were done differently. So for now I think this idea is just for this group of cards.

The simple layout with 4 cards on a 48 card sheet is 4 blocks of 12. But they may well have made it more dificult. Cut wrong there would be 24 with the same name, and 12 with a different name for the 12x4 layout. with the 8x6 layout it would be 32 same name and 6 different name. I'd lean towards this layout since the different name cards are much less common than one with the same name. Other layouts are workable of course but I'm fairly convinced it's 4 players per sheet. (The other one I think might be likely would be one sheet with 4 different and another with 8 different.)

The other probable complication involves the Plank and one other outlier card. The bit of packing log shows a Hindu Reulbach and specifies that the packing is for "other than philadelphia area". I think it's possible there was a special sheet made for the philadelphia area, which included Plank. And that that sheet wasn't used with Hindu.

I did check Teds List of EP backs today and none of these cards are confirmed with EP. That complicates it somewhat, but makes the pattern much stronger for this group.

The other outlier card is Powers, which fits the group very well, but does have a 649 overprint. This one is a real puzzle.

Steve B

[Jantz]

Steve

I have to agree with you when you say "I might expect that the other series were done differently" since none of the two-name T206s are from the 460 series. Maybe one will surface someday.


Jantz

[steve B]

I haven't spotted any other patterns yet, the other series are pretty large so that will be difficult. I think the only way of going at P350 is through the other brands. The 350-460 series is a good one to look at. Especially the SC factory 30. Most of the work is in making the stones or plates, so I'd hope they didn't use many different. And that's another reason the four to a sheet seems off at first. I've actually been considering this for about a year because of that.

I'd compare the pop reports with the spreadsheets, to hopefully see patterns in a slightly larger series, but there's so many reasons they aren't acurate that it seems like it wouldn't be worthwhile. (Stars subed more often, resubs,no back breakouts for many.....)

I'd love to see them offer a cheap or free reslabbing to get more back info, but I know that's not practical unless someone with deep pockets covered it.

Another thing that could be told from high res scans is wether some of the team change tough cards like Lundgren Demmitt and O hara were totally different plates or done by just changing one or two plates.

Steve B

[Abravefan11]

Originally Posted by steve B

Another thing that could be told from high res scans is wether some of the team change tough cards like Lundgren Demmitt and O hara were totally different plates or done by just changing one or two plates.

Steve B

Steve - The two Lundgren cards are different artist renderings using the same original image.

[atx840]

O'Hara is the same plate, I took my (former) example and overlaid the NY and you can see the top right section of the "N" remains on the St L version.

[steve B]

That's really interesting. And a nice example of why I need help with the scans. Out of the 3 of those, I only own a Lundgren KC.

I do think the plates were different for the O'Hara. There is a remnant of the N, but there's also a lot more shading on the Stl version. The Stl version also has red or pink while the NY does not.

So it looks to me like they redid the original art to remove the NY and retook the negatives.

Of course that could be way off depending on the dpi of the original scans. Sometimes resizing loses some detail.

Steve B

Originally Posted by atx840

O'Hara is the same plate, I took my (former) example and overlaid the NY and you can see the top right section of the "N" remains on the St L version.

[Runscott]

Steve - it looks like whoever re-worked the plates had trouble removing the black from the 'N' and 'Y' that was overlaying the line of buttons on O'Hara's shirt. Mine has the same remnants as Chris', but under the loop the remaining top right of the 'N' looks kind of weird - it's a small black loop.

[steve B]

So that's probably two positions for that one. At the very least the stl and NY shown are two different positions. The NY has an alignment mark to the inside of the left border while the STL has either none or a much shorter one.

If the guys at ALC had been sloppier this would be easier, Usually it's not hard to tell between a reworked plate and a diferent plate.

Steve B