T206 Factories

[FrankWakefield]

New York, at American Litho. But me saying it won't make it any more believable than when Ted said it.

The cigarettes were made at the cigarette factories. The packaging wasn't made there, just the cigarettes. The American Lithographic Company printed those little cards, and then sent them to the places where the tobacco packages were being assembled, ie the cigarette places and the Ohio place for Polar Bear.

There are MANY inaccuracies in that The Card book. Many. I bought it and read it, found that to be frustrating, I'd cringe or speak out when I came across something that was wrong. The author wanted to write and sell a book, he didn't know very much about old cards, nor about one particular old card.

[SetBuilder]

Yeah, I figured the book lacked credibility.

Books with those kind of titles usually go for sensationalism over objectivity.

[sreader3]

My original Inside T206 manuscript mistakenly stated that the cards were "printed at" the factories. I corrected this error in the second edition to say "distributed from" the factories. O'Keeffe quoted liberally from my original manuscript and unfortunately the error found its way into his book. This has been discussed at length on this forum before.

[White Borders]

Factory 42 - Durham, NC

[Abravefan11]

Great PC's Craig.

[g_vezina_c55]

if i understand corectly , all the T206 cards where printed at american litho and the same place with the same press printer ??? And after that where shipped to the factory write on the bottom of the card ???

[FrankWakefield]

Yes, that's it.

The cards were distributed in packages; packages that went from the factories into the commerce stream, eventually to a point where they were sold to consumers.

The factories didn't "make" the tobacco. The factory didn't "make" or print the cards. The factories did manufacture (or maybe process for Polar Bear) a tobacco product, package it (sometimes with various collector cards), then they would distribute (sell) the product.

American Lithograph Company printed those cards.

Part of what we collectors miss is the context of what that printing was. Before printing, visual media was hand produced. Gutenburg Bible time, ie the beginnings of movable type, was also when an artistic rendering could be cut into a block of wood. These might be small crude maps, portraits of Saints, Kings, Popes, Emperors... Before this time, the only way a visual image could be captured was by an artist rendering a painting or drawing. The woodcut blocks had a short printing life. Copper plates were used at a later point in time. They would last longer. But again, the product was expensive and beyond the means of most people. Most of us have heard of Currier and Ives prints. The significance is lost upon most folks. These were lithography works, great images, color and detail... and they were in the price range of most folks. For the first time ever, everyday folk could afford a visual rendering (art). Today, everything we see has visual art on it. Everywhere... but that is a fairly new phenomenon. 20 years ago I ordered some billboards, and chose 1 color, blue, to save on printing costs. More colors were more money... Today, the manufacturing process for the billboard sheets is such that full color is the same price as one color... Not true yet for newspapers, though. But I digress. These little trade cards that we look at as antiquated were, in their day, a marvel to behold. They represented a confluence of technology and art that resulted in great visual art in an affordable form.

[SetBuilder]

Could this be what the lithography machines looked like?

[sycks22]

Originally Posted by White Borders

Factory 42 - Durham, NC

The Chimney is still there in the Durham Tabacco road area. It's about 50 yards away from the Durham Bulls stadium. One of those factories were bought by Burt's Bees company. It's a really nice looking area down by the park.