Originally Posted by G1911
I don't think we know why the Plank is rare. The Wagner story is at least a contemporary source in the newspapers (which doesn't make it true, fake news abounds), that his card was pulled because Wagner didn't want them to make it, but it is much better sourced than a line in a book many years later that isn't about the cards even.
I can see it as this, or something else. We have two documents related to the acquisition of subjects rights, the Ball letter and the contract for pugilist Dick Hyland. The letter to Ball tells him it is for tobacco cards, but the contract with Hyland does not; probably because it is a contract with the lithographers and they may have wanted to use subjects for other purposes and other product as well, or to at least leave that door open. It's possible that Plank (and Wagner) did sign a waiver, and then there was a fight over it later because they didn't know when they signed it was for pictures to be inserted into tobacco.
The reason they had to get signatures was, by my understanding, only a state law in New York. After the federal prohibition on tobacco cards was removed, the ATC and their lithography partner(s) (it is unclear to me if the lithographic companies printing cards were all under American Lithogrpahic's umbrella, I have never been able to find a shred of direct evidence that Brett, for example, was a subsidiary, but much of the correspondence Pat and I have found suggests that they work awfully closely for competitors, and considering the fresh Sherman Antitrust Act laws, it makes sense they would pose as separate businesses) put together the T cards, following the 1903 (off memory it's 1903) state law. It is the program manager for at least many of the T card sets that signs the Hyland letter for the lithographers. There was no federal law yet around this at the time as far as I can tell. As a state law, I am not clear that an Athletics player who was not a New Yorker and only occasionally came to the state would have standing to bring suit or require a contract under this legislation. I don't know if we have a law historian around here...
Ball was a New York Highlander when T206 was being planned (his Cleveland pose comes later, after his purchase in May 1909). Hyland was a west coast boxer in origin, but he was based in New York during the period the cards were produced. I am not clear if a Pennsylvania ball player would be covered by the law. It is possible that not everyone had to sign a contract, it is possible the lithographers had them all sign anyways, and it is possible that only New Yorkers were asked to sign waivers. This could explain how Wagner and Plank were pulled; they didn't need to agree to a waiver at all but the conglomerates didn't want to deal with a fight over such an inconsequential thing (to them), and just pulled the cards.
We have records of only one lawsuit over the T cards, from Harry Porter who appeared in the T218 set of non-baseball athletes, a member of the NY Irish-American Athletic Club under whose auspices he competed. Porter sued them for the illegal use of his image under the NY state law. I'm not quite clear how this resolved as not all of the documents survive (only a summary of selected hearings on it, as far as I have been able to find), but the defense was essentially 'actually he signed a waiver and we have a copy of it', so I can't imagine he won (or the defense was taking one heck of a bold lie that would shortly after fall apart if they couldn't produce that document). But again, we have 1 lawsuit and 2 contract related pieces of evidence, all of which center around New Yorkers who would definitley be covered by the state law.
I think it's possible that Plank and Wagner simply never had to give their permission at all. Wagner was pulled after making a public stink, Plank for possibly the same root thing, but the big complication with Plank is that his card was printed and pulled in 2 series. If he was pulled from series 1 and scratched off the list over contractual or 'let's not have drama' reasons, it's hard to see why he would have been reinstated. I tend to lean to that something more complicated happened with Plank, but I don't think we can really say what actually happened, there's no direct evidence of anything, just things that might reasonably fit one possibility or another.
|