Where is the second ledger of T cards?

[G1911]

Julius Bion & Co. appear to have done a lot of printing work for the United States Senate in the 1890's. This firm's name is repeated throughout their "Reports of the Public Printer". Here's the 1895 book covering 1893-1894, and in which this firm appears many times: https://www.google.com/books/edition...C?hl=en&gbpv=0. He appears in House reports from the 1880's, did some work for the Commerce, Agriculture and State departments that are all in similar resources on Google Books. This moves us a lot closer to 1909. Bion may not be this man in the ledger but he was probably in Fullgraff's network, who was in the business at this same time and his primary career seems to have been networking.

[G1911]

I suspect Julius Bien & Co. and Julius Bion & Co., lithographers with a specialty in producing maps, are the exact same thing, and this is just another example of inconsistent spelling.

Under the name Bien, instead of Bion, this firm is clearly active in 1909. Government printing office reports continue to refer to them in 1911 (https://www.google.com/books/edition...sec=frontcover), and in 1914.

Evidently, Bien/Bion was bidding against American Lithography for government contracts in 1911, and losing. If this is the same man (I have a hard time believing there was a Julius Bion, Julius Bien, and Julius Bionter all in the same industry in management roles of some kind at the same time, can't say for sure but it seems very likely), he, like we have continually found with these lithographers, seems to both be competing with American Lithography and also working with them, and with other lithographers. We have Old Masters, Brett 100% doing some of the printing, Bien designing brands and marketing materials, American Lithography. The traditional claim that AL and the ATC were the solitary partners on the American Tobacco companies cards certainly does not seem to be the case.

[G1911]

Ha, I thought Bien sounded real familiar and went back to our previous thread here (https://www.net54baseball.com/showth...=309276&page=2).

Fullgraff was a clerk for Bien in the 1890's, from the same source I found that gave us Fullgraff's membership in the New York Athletic Club (which seems to relate to t218 and T220, many of those portrayed he surely knew personally) and the Larchmont.

You found a source of them being on Sixth Avenue in NY from between at least 1898-1915.

This is clearly all the same person/firm at this point.

[RCMcKenzie]

I recognize Julius Bien & Co from the Buchner Gold Coin series. I collect the set and was doing some research on the fly in this thread, see post 31.

www.net54baseball.com/showthread.php?t=284915


Hopefully, the winner of the Leland's lot will chime in.

[G1911]

There's another connection, another N card involved individual coming up again in the T card project once the law changed.

Bien fought in the 1848 Springtime revolutions, was the first President of the National Lithographers Association, and was the leader of B'nai B'rith for over 3 decades according to Wikipedia. Died in December of 1909. Seems like the fellow lived quite a varied life, just like Fullgraff. His son donated a portrait to the Smithsonian in 1920, painted by George Da Maduro Peixotto.

Fullgraff's sporting interests, Bien's in birds and fish and maps, correlate strongly to the subjects chosen for the card projects, which appear to have been chosen by the lithographers and not the ATC from our 2021 research. Fullgraff's seem to be causation more than correlation.

Here's a modern reprint credited to his firm originally for the "American Eagle Tobacco Company": https://pixels.com/featured/american...uct=wood-print picturing Lily Langtry, who crops up in many places in advertising and public interest during this period and seems to be one of those women famous for being famous and being associated to numerous men. Still looking for other connections to tobacco.

[G1911]

Bien produced a map for the Interior Department showing the "regions producing the principal types of tobacco" as part of the tenth census, which would have been a few years before the Buchner cards. https://www.google.com/books/edition...J?hl=en&gbpv=0

An 1898 edition of Profitable Advertising (https://www.google.com/books/edition...J?hl=en&gbpv=0) reports:

"The well-known lithographic house of Julius Bien & Co., New York, lately executed one million sheets for the American Tobacco Company. It is easier for the average person to state this fact than it is for him to comprehend the size of such an order, or the amount of labor involved in executing the same".

In 1912, Bien & co. patented a number of cigar brands I am not familiar with, listed on page 691 here; https://www.google.com/books/edition...sec=frontcover. They appear in other annual reports recording their rights to slogans and names for other non-tobacco products.

They appear to have had financial issues with creditors in 1914, that made its way to the New York Supreme Court. A single creditor claimed over $65,000 owed to him. Companies assets were assessed at about $39,000. Perhaps one of our lawyers may make better work of this than I. https://www.google.com/books/edition...sec=frontcover. It seems at this time Bien's son and namesake and a Franklin Bien, who may be another son, were running the show. Included in the records are plenty of itemized jobs and payments to Liggett & Myers, for cigar labels, "dancing inserts" and more. Some single tobacco jobs netted as much as $22,500, which is a lot of money for a print job in 1914. It is a lengthy read, and I have not read the entire text yet.

It seems clear and evident this firm had deep relationships in the tobacco industry and decades of partnering with the leading tobacco firms.

Fullgraff worked directly for American Lithography, Brett, Bien, and American Tobacco at different points in the 1890's-1910's. He seems to have continued to do business with all of them before and after his direct employments, a cross-industry project manager and networker for whom what we might now call conflicts of interest seem to have been his desirable asset.

[G1911]

And, I found another detail of Frank G. Fullgraff's life I did not find in the original deep dive, his marriage record. He wed an Anna L. Simpkins on September 10, 1874. It was recorded in the New York Herald, and transcribed into this book: https://www.google.com/books/edition...C?hl=en&gbpv=0. Frank G. was born in 1851.

An Anna Fullgraff petitioned the Parks Department in 1884 to improve some city streets (https://www.google.com/books/edition...J?hl=en&gbpv=0).

Anna Fullgraff left or sold to Clara Simpkins 2 buildings (5 and 3 story tenement buildings) on Downing Street in 1900. Fullgraff clearly was financially successful before his very lucrative contract at Brett Lithography. https://www.google.com/books/edition...J?hl=en&gbpv=0. Frank and Anna appear to have themselves lived on West 23rd Street.

Fullgraff was a swimmer, baseball player (Grammarcy), rifle champion, rower, billiardist and more in the sporting world. Pat found a record of him being said rifle champion, but no more was found. I found a record (https://www.google.com/books/edition...J?hl=en&gbpv=1), from the NRA competition:

"At the autumn meting of the National Rifle Association 1876, the following remarkable score was made at 200 yards, off-hand, with a military rifle. Frank G Fullgraff 5, 5, 4, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5 -- 34 out of 35." Truly impressive marksmanship with a trapdoor.


These particular trail may never tie back into the card sets, but Fullgraff's life has often turned out to us to connect back to a card topic later and given new insight, and the board did ask for more research posts today.

[Pat R]

Originally Posted by G1911

Bien produced a map for the Interior Department showing the "regions producing the principal types of tobacco" as part of the tenth census, which would have been a few years before the Buchner cards. https://www.google.com/books/edition...J?hl=en&gbpv=0

An 1898 edition of Profitable Advertising (https://www.google.com/books/edition...J?hl=en&gbpv=0) reports:

"The well-known lithographic house of Julius Bien & Co., New York, lately executed one million sheets for the American Tobacco Company. It is easier for the average person to state this fact than it is for him to comprehend the size of such an order, or the amount of labor involved in executing the same".

In 1912, Bien & co. patented a number of cigar brands I am not familiar with, listed on page 691 here; https://www.google.com/books/edition...sec=frontcover. They appear in other annual reports recording their rights to slogans and names for other non-tobacco products.

They appear to have had financial issues with creditors in 1914, that made its way to the New York Supreme Court. A single creditor claimed over $65,000 owed to him. Companies assets were assessed at about $39,000. Perhaps one of our lawyers may make better work of this than I. https://www.google.com/books/edition...sec=frontcover. It seems at this time Bien's son and namesake and a Franklin Bien, who may be another son, were running the show. Included in the records are plenty of itemized jobs and payments to Liggett & Myers, for cigar labels, "dancing inserts" and more. Some single tobacco jobs netted as much as $22,500, which is a lot of money for a print job in 1914. It is a lengthy read, and I have not read the entire text yet.

It seems clear and evident this firm had deep relationships in the tobacco industry and decades of partnering with the leading tobacco firms.

Fullgraff worked directly for American Lithography, Brett, Bien, and American Tobacco at different points in the 1890's-1910's. He seems to have continued to do business with all of them before and after his direct employments, a cross-industry project manager and networker for whom what we might now call conflicts of interest seem to have been his desirable asset.

I think a lot of people in the hobby don't realize how big the tobacco card printings were at the time and I'm not talking about just T206's, that's one of the things we have learned from these ledgers/albums. I also think there is a misconception about some of the changes that were made in these sets, in general there are far more changes that could have been made that weren't than changes that were made. I think the ones that were made were because they were done at an opportune time like a change over to another series or another facility. I don't believe they would stop in the middle of these huge projects to make a change because a player was on a different team or something similar.

Hopefully we can eventually get more information on the other pages that were in this register book.

A friend has an old album that he sent me to look through and the colors on the cards are amazing unfortunately my photography skills are not.

Here are a few of the pages if I remember there were 50-60 pages left in the album when he got it but most of the baseball and other sports cards were removed before he got it.

[IMG][/IMG]


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[Pat R]

Originally Posted by G1911

I suspect Julius Bien & Co. and Julius Bion & Co., lithographers with a specialty in producing maps, are the exact same thing, and this is just another example of inconsistent spelling.

Under the name Bien, instead of Bion, this firm is clearly active in 1909. Government printing office reports continue to refer to them in 1911 (https://www.google.com/books/edition...sec=frontcover), and in 1914.

Evidently, Bien/Bion was bidding against American Lithography for government contracts in 1911, and losing. If this is the same man (I have a hard time believing there was a Julius Bion, Julius Bien, and Julius Bionter all in the same industry in management roles of some kind at the same time, can't say for sure but it seems very likely), he, like we have continually found with these lithographers, seems to both be competing with American Lithography and also working with them, and with other lithographers. We have Old Masters, Brett 100% doing some of the printing, Bien designing brands and marketing materials, American Lithography. The traditional claim that AL and the ATC were the solitary partners on the American Tobacco companies cards certainly does not seem to be the case.

Yes, it didn't dawn on me when I posted the clips but after I went back to look at some of the additional information last night I came to the same conclusion as you.

[toppcat]

Fascinating!