T206 printing mystery

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Posted By: Brian Weisner

Hi Ted,
There's no question that most of the great uncut sheets that survived to today, were taken home by the employees who created them. Unfortunately, most of the items that have surfaced from the 1900-17 era have been items meant for the trash bin. Perhaps there employers didn't care if they took home unfinished or miscut cards, but frowned upon entire sheets or boards that could be reused in some fashion from walking out the door. It may be as simple as size, it's much easier to slip a few cards into ones pocket than to slip a sheet of 24 cards under your shirt.

The fact is, we'll never know why we don't have any uncut material from this time, because I believe most of it came out during the late 70's early 90's when the card market was in it's heyday. It also happened to coincide with the deaths of many of the people who would have worked in these plants. I'm sure there will be more "Vintage finds" on the horizon, but expect most will be cards, and that the days of finding uncut sheets from this era are probably over.


We should also remember that the American Lithograph company's primary business was producing cigar Labels and posters, so they may not have considered the cards they produced for such a short period of time that important to the companies history. Simply finding information about the company has taken quite a bit of time and effort, and until recently we knew next to nothing about it's formation or it's major products. Besides Posters, and cigar labels, they also owned Truth magazine, and several other periodicals. The more we learn about ALCO, the more we'll hopefully learn about the cards......

Be well Brian