T220 Silver - Uncut Edition

G1911 · #1 12-09-2022, 06:51 PM

While the T220 sheet being more complete and the backstamp on it has led to fleshing out a lot of what was going on in 1910, these track fragments may end up leading somewhere too. In the general narrative that is repeated, the ATC and AL worked together on the cards, with the ATC as the dominant partner and AL as the contracted printer. I think that a lot of what we have found has the lithographers controlling a lot of the ATC's operations, instead. The E229 fragments clearly come from the same origin as the T220 sheet, though who exactly this was and how they got them is a mystery. Being from the same source and being proof sheets (The T220 is a pre-production proof sheet, not just a sheet, beyond any reasonable doubt while this one most likely is) would suggest, though not conclusively prove, that the items are from the same printing shop. The checklist has a lot in common with the track athletes under contract with the ATC products. It raises the possibility that the

Here's 3 more sheets that the purchaser from the second round of auctions was kind enough to arrange a deal for. I suspect a lot more of this sheet is just missing and did not survive at all, compared to the T220 sheet. The bottom panel is actually in two pieces, connected only by the back tape.

I still cannot discern if this is an E229 or a D353 sheet, or tell which set came first, or if both sets were issued at the same time. D353 advertises that a card was given "with" (not "in", and the card's don't typically betray signs of having been stuffed in with bread) Koester's Honey Bread "for month of May" with no year specified. May 1910 or May 1911 would be most likely. These issues and T218 are really more a look at the big stars of 1908 than anything, and the checklist does not really help the dating.

G1911 · #2 12-09-2022, 08:32 PM

And here's a reconstruction of the pieces that fit together touching, with gaps left between segments that don't connect. It's possible it's not all from one sheet. It does seem likely rows repeated 5 cards in a pattern, but where those patterns are placed seems random.

aljurgela · #3 12-12-2022, 04:26 PM

but since Adam mentioned this card....

amazing sheets btw..

G1911 · #4 12-31-2022, 08:59 PM

Back to the research front, I think I have found some more relating to T220 here while digging through old copies of the United States Tobacco Journal.

J.B. Bevill is listed in the January 5, 1910 issue as the man "who will have charge of the Moguls and Helmars, and will have as assistants S.R. Calish... G.C. McConnell, J.E White and J. Higgins. This article also notes some other job switches in the ATC and department pairings.

The June 8th issue has Bevill being sent to New York. Bevill "who had charge of the cigarette department of the 'A. T.' Co. in Boston is now in New York and has been succeeded by Mr. Gay". A transfer to New York almost always means a promotion within the ATC.

J.B. Bevill is listed as being in Boston "visiting the jobbers" in the July 2, 1910 issue. This phrase seems to be used to mean the low-level employees of the ATC, but at others times is used to also denote small store buyers.

Bevill is listed in the September 24, 1910 edition as the "manager of the Mecca and Tolstoi cigarette department of the American Tobacco Co." and coming to Chicago on the way home from a "western trip". So Mecca and Tolstoi were a singular department, which is new information. They issued T218 and T220 together, and more sets singly without both brands being involved. The date on the back of the T220 sheet is September 13, 1910, just days before this issue. Bevill is probably the person at the ATC who would have given final sign off to actually issue the cards with these brands (Hassan was not issued at the same time as Mecca) and send to the factories for packing; the man who Fullgraff probably passed overall responsibility too after the lithographers had printed the cards.

The November 19, 1910 issue has Bevill temporarily in Chicago now, "devoting his time and active services to a two weeks selling campaign in the interest of the Lenox brand, which he hopes to popularize in the local market.... the sale in the past has been confined to a very limited territory in this city." Possibly interesting to T206 guys, not sure if Chicago localization is new. ATC jobs seem to have been more like guidelines than how we think of job responsibilities today usually, employees seem to switch positions and go off on side projects all the time and it is treated as normal.

Bevill stayed with the ATC after the feds busted up their operation. In 1919 he was still an employee and visitng Boston worksites according to the March 5, 1919 edition of the Tobacco Record. He was still there as a sales manager in 1921, according to some FTC documents. In 1926 a J.B. Bevill of Boston (which seems to have been the tobacco Bevill's original home) a corn and eczema lotion company. In 1914 a J.B. Bevill in New York, where we last know he was living, is identified as having "plumbing and gas works" installed in his "handsome new residence and garage" at Anderson and Prospect avenues in the Domestic Engineering Journal. Nobody ever gives his Christian name.

For the immense expense and scope of the card project as a primary form of advertising for the monopoly, it is somewhat surprising that the cards almost never actually appear in the industry journals as even a footnote mention.

G1911 · #5 01-01-2023, 12:42 AM

In October, 1910 the United States Tobacco Journal reports demand has exceeded supply and the Mecca cigarettes have shortages. This is right about the time I would expect the cards to be starting to enter the market.

It is purely speculative, but this rather than cost may have been the reason the silver borders were quickly abandoned, if it was taking too long to get the extra fancy work done on the cards and there was an active shortage in the market, the need for more expensive premiums clearly wasn't there and slowing down distribution wouldn't be advisable.

G1911 · #6 01-01-2023, 01:28 AM

Also came across this in an article from July 9, 1910 about the film of the Jeffries-Johnson fight (owned by AL) being banned in the city of San Francisco. Presumably the gentlemen Hess, S.F. cigar men, have connection to the S.F. Hess business that issued the west coast N332 boxers.

G1911 · #7 01-01-2023, 01:32 AM

While Knapp's American Lithography held the film rights, as Pat discovered, the ATC apparently held "exclusive advertising privileges" to the event for the tobacco industry. Johnson signed a late contract and was almost certainly super printed in a weird printing setup for T218 and T9 in the lead up to the fight and its immediate aftermath. Presumably that contract was among the bundle of deals made by the Jeffries and Johnson camps with the lithographers and tobacco monopoly. Jeffries had an earlier, normal schedule contract.

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