New theory why American Beauty cards are narrower than other T206's

[FrankWakefield]

Thanks for that, Steve.

I can't envision American Litho reingraving for the special runs of American Beauty cards. I don't think each card was individually etched. If they were, and they were pieced into the press like movable type, then it would have been likely with all of those cards with multiple passes that we'd have seen a card with one player's green and another player's yellow.... for example.

What seems more likely is that normal width sheets had the cards cut with just an extra sliver coming off of the side of each of the cards. Maybe someone at AB whined about the cards being so wide they were difficult to slide into that nice, wide, normal-sized package. So American Litho cut them a tad smaller for AB.

[steve B]

So I've done the scans and looked at them. Pretty interesting.

If they were different it wouldn't necessarily mean the stone/plate was different. A card from one part of the plate is usually different from one from another part if there's two of them on the plate. And I think there's enough T206s out there with the same name at the top from a miscut or even with the name at both top and bottom that we know they were often or usually doubled up on the sheet.

Here's the detail of the American Beauty card.


And here's the detail of the same area of the Soverign card


Both were scanned at 800dpi

The slight diffrences in the thickness of the black lines are from the black ink being a bit more liquid while the soverign card was being printed. The registration is also different. Blue a bit high on the AB and a grayish color slightly to the left on the Sov. Aside from that the dot pattern and even the lettering are close enough to call them identical. I'm nearly certain that not only were they printed by the same plate, but are from the same position on the plate.

I'd be interested to hear theories against this. I have a couple, but consider them to be unlikely.

Next up, looking at the maybe two other t206s I have two of, and looking at a modern card or two that I know for sure are double prints so I can show examples of differences.

I'm thinking on the extra sliver trimmed off idea, currently thinking not, but it bears some thought.

Steve B

[ethicsprof]

Steve B,

i am very impressed with your expertise in this arena.
i know Joe has offered much help with printing issues since he is trained and practices in that area. Jamie has helped a great deal with his knowledge of key texts in the field of lithography. And David has offered help when it comes to photography.
I do believe that your specialty has been desperately needed and very much welcome!!!
I'm late to this thread and now have much to delve into and incubate.
all the best,
barry

[teetwoohsix]

Steve,I think you are 100% right.If you compare the letter "W" in the word "NEW" and the letter "R" in the word "AMER." on both cards,you can see an exact match-this is great work!!

Thank you also for the detailed breakdown with the printing processes,this is an awesome addition to this thread.

Sincerely,Clayton

[mkdltn]

I did a patent search on Google, I think these coupons were machine fed into the package. If the cards were a tad to large for the feeder mechanism it would really cause problems on the line. This would explain the isolation of the thin cards to one factory. It was a customer request easily implemented quite late in the production process. Just an Idea.

http://www.google.com/patents?id=IB9...coupon&f=false

Mike

[steve B]

Thanks guys, I'm far from being an expert. I worked for a couple years in a print shop years ago. 1979-81 actually only 2 years as the first and last were half years. But the shop was a great place to work and insisted on the guys like me doing other jobs. And we were expected to pay attention. I got to run a 35 inch Heidelbeg press my last week due to an injury. And I did at least a day or two helping and learning in all the other departments except sales.

I stayed up way too late last night scanning cards, and I've got some ideas that may make things a bit more confusing.

I like Mikes idea about the machine, but with some reservations. More to think about.

Steve B