Where have all the T206 uncut sheets gone.... ?

[Abravefan11]

Originally Posted by E93

Tim,
Your presentation makes a lot of sense to me and I appreciate all the hard work you and others have put into this. I have a question about the Plank. It makes sense that Wagner and Plank were late additions to the 150 series and only distributed with Sweet Cap backs. Both have what appear to be a few handcut examples with Piedmont 150 backs. In the case of the Wagner, it makes sense that these were pulled from distribution right away and never made it into Piedmont packs. But we know that Plank continued into the 350 series, at least for a very short time. How would you explain the existence of a pulled 150 Piedmont Plank that then gets continued in the 350 series?

My guess is that since there seems to be some evidence to suggest the Wagner and Plank 150's were on the same sheet that when Wagner protested, since not many of those Piedmont sheets had been printed, they just trashed them rather than try to individually pull Wagners out. So a few Plank 150s and a couple Wagner 150s made their way to the hobby. Wagner production was then done, but Plank continued for a short period after the switch to 350. Does that seem probable? I would love to hear your thoughts.
Thanks,
JimB

Hi Jim - I think you and I are in agreement. I believe the reason that the Piedmont 150 sheets were pulled was to remove the Wagner. In doing so Plank was removed from the Piedmont 150 distribution as well but his subject wasn't discontinued at that point.

From the point that the Piedmont sheets were removed until the next printing of Plank was an interesting time in the print group 1 production. Here's how we explain the progression of the Plank on the site.

After the Piedmont 150 printing in which the Plank cards were not distributed, several more printings took place that did not include the Plank card. The first was for distribution with Hindu brand cigarettes. In total, 102 major-league subjects were printed at this time, with a third of the available subjects, including Plank, not being printed. The next printing was for the transition of the set from the 150 to the 350 series, with subjects being printed with Piedmont 350 and El Principe De Gales backs. Of the available subjects that could be printed at this time, just more than half were included and just less than half were not printed. Again, Plank was in this large no-print group. Of these two print runs, many subjects from print group 1 were absent from one or the other, with a group of subjects that included Plank being absent from both.

The next printing was for Sweet Caporal 350 No.30 and included Plank. After the distribution of Plank cards with this back, no additional cards of his were printed. It is not known if a cease and desist of some kind was presented to the companies responsible for the set or if they simply chose to remove the card on their own.

Originally Posted by E93

And one more question:

Do you think that the number of Wagner SC 150s and the number of Plank SC 150s is roughly the same with the Plank 350s accounting for the slightly larger number of extant Planks than Wagners?
JimB

I've been looking at the Plank and Wagner numbers for a while now and from what I can tell the Wagner and Plank SC 150 numbers are relatively the same. I don't want to go into too much detail on this as I haven't had a chance to speak to John and a few others yet to discuss it in more detail.

Yes, I believe the additional printing of the Plank with a 350 back accounts for there being more Planks than Wagner's.