New theory why American Beauty cards are narrower than other T206's

[tedzan]

This is all very interesting; however, I do not see any noticeable difference in the Brown lettering captions of my three Ford
cards.
The Brown captions were printed in the initial ink printing phase (of the 6-color process) in the printing of T206's. There are
many T206 proofs that confirm this fact. Therefore, I don't expect any significant differences in the printing of the captions.









Regarding the main subject of this thread, the cigarette packaging (cutting, folding, assembling the packs and the cigarette
stuffing) was done by machinery at the "modernized" Factory's [such as the Kimball plant (#649). in Rochester, NY].

But, it's my impression that the the T-card insertion was done by the employees (usually, low paid women or teenage youth).
Inserting two cards (one on each side of the slide) in the pack was a very quick and simple process.


TED Z

[tedzan]

One more very important bit of information. The majority of the Tobacco brands, reflected on the backs of the T206 cards,
were produced at the Richmond, VA factory (#25) during the 1909-1910 timeframe.

The Factory #25 cigarette production includes the following T206's......

American Beauty 350 (frame and no frame)
Broad Leaf 350 & 460
Carolina Brights
Cycle 350 & 460
Drum
Old Mill
Piedmont 150 & 350 & 460
Sovereign 150 & 350 & 460
Sweet Caporal 150 & 350 & 460

Therefore, I do not understand this comment......

" I think these coupons were machine fed into the package. If the cards were a tad to large for the feeder mechanism it would
really cause problems on the line. This would explain the isolation of the thin cards to one factory. "


TED Z

[steve B]

That was one of the reservations I had about the machine theory. I can only think of a few reasons why a factory would have one particular machine that required different inserts. None of those reasons make much sense considering how industry worked at the time.

The only halfway sensible thought is that they were testing a new machine that had potential to be faster. I don't think that's the case. If it was there would be a population of some other brands cards that were narrow like the ABs. And there would more than likely be a population of ABs that were normally sized. The same would go for a change during production. Since there isn't any evidence of either, I think that can be set aside for now.

Nice to see more Fords. A sample of two isn't all that much, 5 is a bit better.

My main point with the ford was that if they made a new plate for the AB cards to fit more across the row they would have probably taken new halftone pictures, and they'd be different. The consistency between all the Fords leaves me convinced that all were printed from the same plate.

I've looked at a few different t206s that I have two of,(11, more than I thought) and there aren't really any screening differences on any of them. There are a few differences, but nothing I can really say isn't just due to the variable inking. The Absteins I have show a difference on the hat that is close, but not enough to say it's different. And there's a mark on the left frame line of Beck. And Abbattichio blue sleeves has a difference near the neck. All of these could be merely from over or underinking, or even just how fluid the ink was that day.

It has also occurred to me that if you were doing several of the same player on a sheet you could take multiple images of the same halftone, so the different positions wouldn't absolutely be different.

I was thinking that it would also be a nuisance to trim the extra bit off the AB cards in production, but it's probably possible to cut the sheet normally and still make the narrow cards.

Fascinating stuff, the more I think and try to prove/disprove a theory, the more It looks like it might just be possible.

Steve B