What research is needed on the T206 set?

[ethicsprof]

finding examples of type 1 photos which served as the bases for all 524 cards would be quite an accomplishment. It would also be very interesting to see which
photographers were 'responsible' for each of the 524.

I suspect that you are going to have lots of fun with several projects!!!
all the best,
barry

[Jantz]

Originally Posted by ethicsprof

finding examples of type 1 photos which served as the bases for all 524 cards would be quite an accomplishment. It would also be very interesting to see which
photographers were 'responsible' for each of the 524.

I suspect that you are going to have lots of fun with several projects!!!
all the best,
barry

I agree with Barry. This would be another good project that could hold some interesting results.

Jantz

[the 'stache]

Barry,

You've touched upon something that has interested me since the first time I saw the Wagner photo that was used for his T206 portrait.

I know t206resource.com has several of these. 47 to be precise.

That would make for a fascinating project!

I'll look over these more tonight. Thanks, gang.

Originally Posted by ethicsprof

finding examples of type 1 photos which served as the bases for all 524 cards would be quite an accomplishment. It would also be very interesting to see which
photographers were 'responsible' for each of the 524.

I suspect that you are going to have lots of fun with several projects!!!
all the best,
barry

[ethicsprof]

glad that you're excited about this one. Type 1 photos for these cards would
be great fun to look at anyway!
47 means you just have 477 to go!
I know Scott F. has a section of his website dedicated to this work, too.
I suspect there may be others.


jantz,
thanks for the supportive words.
always great to hear from you.

all the best, bill and jantz
barry

[steve B]

There are a lot of things to look into. It all depends on what you're interested in.

Making some lists of the three (Maybe more) versions of both the 150's and 350's is one. Figuring out which cards share common traits, and what backs they have.

Studying the registration marks to maybe figure out how many instances of the same subject might have been on a sheet.

Finding solid but small differences between the 350 runs and the 450/460 runs of the card that are in both.

That's just a few examples.

Of course, if you find that sort of thing painfully dull and want no part of it.....I totally understand.

Steve B

[wolf441]

This is probably not possible, but what about tracking down lists of employees who worked at the various factories in 1909-1911? I doubt that any of the records survived and it's a shot in the dark, but I've never heard of someone attempting to go this route. Maybe even finding out who was in charge of printing/advertising at ALC. If we could ever get some definitive names, maybe we could track down families and see if they had keep any business correspondence, etc...

Just thinking out loud

[teetwoohsix]

Originally Posted by wolf441

This is probably not possible, but what about tracking down lists of employees who worked at the various factories in 1909-1911? I doubt that any of the records survived and it's a shot in the dark, but I've never heard of someone attempting to go this route. Maybe even finding out who was in charge of printing/advertising at ALC. If we could ever get some definitive names, maybe we could track down families and see if they had keep any business correspondence, etc...

Just thinking out loud

I think this is a great idea. Would probably be very difficult but I do think if there was a way to find more records, or employees (or family of employees who may have records and not realize the significance ), this could be extremely helpful.

One of the most difficult things to really get a definitive answer on seems to be the size of the sheet.......but thanks to some dedicated board members, I think, aside from discovering a long lost sheet - people like Chris and Erick are getting us closer to actually putting a virtual one together- like in that thread with the Lash's postcards.

Good luck Bill, it's hard finding out things others haven't already found out I literally tried for months- and really couldn't come up with anything new. The Library of Congress was very helpful- even they said if there were more records (like Steve said above) from the ALC it could answer a lot of questions. Maybe you could comb newspaper articles and make some discoveries.

Sincerely, Clayton

[ethicsprof]

I much appreciate your focus on looking for high quality matching photos.
I would think that this would open the path to identifying type one with the photographers responsible for them. This should be a fascinating and groundbreaking effort for the hobby. Your focus mentioned above is already a very,very
important step, I believe.

all the best, bill


barry

[BicycleSpokes]

Hi Bill,

Since I started collecting t206, there is one aspect I have found especially interesting:

While these cards have been around for over 100 years old, they still seem to have quite wild fluctuations / bubbles, etc. in their relative demand.

I have only been collecting t206 cards for like a total of 3 active years - I started around 2007 or 2008, and then took about a 5-or-so year break after my daughter was born, before becoming relatively active again this past year. Hence I have had sort of a miniture "Rip Van Winkle" experience. Upon my return, I could easily notice a number of fairly dramatic changes that had occured in the hobby. Among these:

1. True auctions were increasingly rare on ebay (replaced by typically overpriced Buy-it-nows)
2. Rare back brands (and some varieties like cycle 460) had exploded further (this has already been documented by Scot Reader's piece in 2012)
3. The Titus-itus bubble

... and perhaps other more recent trends that I may be missing... Again, these are just well-documented things over the past few years...

A question that could be interesting to research / document / quantify (or maybe is already common knowledge with other more seasoned collectors): Are such wild fluctuations in backs / certain common players only a thing that have occured recently, or have there been other wild price fluctuations / bubbles with certain players/cards in the long t206 history?

At least is one aspect I have found fascinating, personally! The collecting of 100 year old cards is certainly more dynamic than I had expected...

Cheers,
David