T206 Reference / Reflections.....Tuesday Nite Trivia

[tedzan]

Originally Posted by gregr2

Hi Ted, thanks for always providing such top notch T206 information. I notice you say you “speculate” about such things as players next to each other on a sheet and other things. My question is, did the printers not keep records or have they all been destroyed? Sorry if this has been answered before.

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Thanks Greg, and, you ask a great question. Apparently, nothing was saved from American Litho's printing days of their various sets of tobacco cards (1909 - 1919).
Millions and millions of cards were produced, and not even a single sheet of cards has been discovered. This is really very strange. The only example which I know of
players horizontally adjacent to each other on a sheet is Chance (yellow portrait) and Cobb (red portrait), because I have seen a mis-cut T206 indicating this.

Years ago I was in downtown Manhattan, so I ventured over to Park Ave. and E 19th Street where the American Lithographic building still stands. I entered it, hoping
to find a showroom (or some kind of museum) displaying all the great stuff this great printing Company produced in the early 20th Century. What I found were many
professional offices, but no showrooms and no displays of any kind. The only thing I got out that visit was this photo I took of the building's entrance.





One of the competitors to American Lithographic (ALC) was Schmidt Lithography in San Francisco. They produced the OBAK cards. If you go to San Francisco,
visit the museum that Schmidt Lithography has on display. It's a real shame that ALC did not do the same.


TED Z
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