"subjects" and "series" really does not matter to me...that is just how they designated them on certain cards...t42 is certainly related to the gold borders in that they were issued with certain packages of cigarettes and printed by the same lithographer. But, the t42 bird series is indeed 100 subjects...or a series of 100. I have a feeling that the baseball was to be extended at some point to 400 and that something happened. It could have been anything really...break up of the ATC, problems at the printer...machine issues, ink issues, etc. The gold borders were almost certainly more expensive to produce than t206s...maybe after the ATC breakup the money was not there for such a project and it was abandoned. Who knows?
I would really wish there was more information about how and why certain cards were included with certain brands. Did they feel that people that smoked certain brands would be more apt to buy them because they had baseball cards or fish cards? Was the marketing that sophisticated back then? (I suspect it was). Would love to have been in those meetings.
Joshua
|