[Pat R]

Originally Posted by G1911

It's a good thing you smart gents are here, because I was looking for a "Brett Little" as an employee of ALC or ATC like a dumbass, though it seems obvious now...

Until a year ago, my suspicion had been that American Lithographic did pretty much all the 1909-1912 American Tobacco cards, which I think was the normal opinion. I thought they had a more active role than is generally imagined, as it seems they were the ones securing athletes rights (inferred from the Ball letter), and not ATC, seeming like more than the role of a printer contracted to do a job. The ATC ledger doesn't have anything on indentifying the printer unless my memory is awry. This ledger from Lelands last year would suggest whoever Old Masters is and Brett Lithographic worked in partnership to produce some of the sets, at least.

The "prize fighters" referenced printed at Brett until they "burnt out" and then started at Old Masters must be T225-1, not T220 (the dates are before T220-1 or T220-2 is possible, because Gans date of death appears in the cards. Thus they can't have been done before mid-August, 1910 at the earliest). I thought t225 (and T28, T96) were not done by ATC/AL, and the Oxford/Surbrug/Khedieval brands weren't part of the ATC umbrella. Am I wrong there?

So there's multiple printers working in partnership (the 'burnt out' pass-off reference would seem to tell us this) to print ATC sets, even within the same set. My first thought is that this is because American Lithography dominated the New York printing business at this time. I have not succeeded in finding reference to Old Masters or Brett Litho as subsidiaries though; Pat's linked article even includes the transaction history of Brett without reference to them ever being an American Lithography subsidiary. This wasn't entirely uncommon then though; with the Monopoly laws being fairly fresh and enforced there were plenty of somewhat secret subsidiaries in a host of areas. If Old Masters and Brett Litho were not subsidiaries, they could be sub-contractors OR the entire picture is much more complicated and Lithograph companies were competing for orders and business from American Tobacco, and the long-standing view of the ATC/AL partnership is just wrong.

This is along the lines of what I have suggested as a possibility for a few years now about the t206's. It would be the answer to many question about the T206's if there were several facility's and/or firms involved in printing the t206's over the 2+ years they were distributed.