American Lithographic Journals

[GasHouseGang]

Over on the Vintage Baseball board they were discussing this American Lithographic Journal that was found. Unfortunately, it has been disassembled and sold in pieces over the years. But they had a link to a .pdf that contained several of the pages. Luckily, several of the pages related to the T218 set. I thought some of these pages might provide some insight to the collectors on this boxing board. Here are some images.

[G1911]

The ATC ledger book is from this thread on the non-sports side, very kind of the owner to share with us all: https://forum.vintagenonsports.com/p...pid=1311578363

The first series T218 page featuring a Hyland and McGrath fronts and Mecca backs is, I think, not actually about the T218's. The bottom half is discussing a cabinet promotion (what 'big athlete' cabinet could this be? Obak's don't fit here, and T3/T9 were not issued this way either) inserted into bulk purchases of cartons. The side-facing texts provides dates that are physically impossible. T218-1 card backs reference up to February 7th, 1910, giving the result of a Phil McGovern fight on this date. Thus, they could not possibly be printed, packed or shipped before this date, and the page claims early January, a full month before real world events whose outcomes are written of on the backs. The more I look at this, the more I think the compiler inserted the wrong cards onto the wrong page.

The other series 1 page featuring the Hassan back and Robertson checks out, May 1910 would place Hassan production probably after Mecca (which we know must be the case from other evidence), and give time to do the back texts, print, produce and pack.

There is another T218 page included in the book, featuring George Sutton's 3rd series card and a date of February, 1911. This is feasible, as the backs of this series end at December 31, 1910.

It does seem to contradict the letter to C.D. Posey showing Hoppe's 3rd series card giving a May 1911 date, which is quite a big gap from the end of the back text to issue date. We see in many issues that the ALC/ATC cards were usually kept pretty up to date. The series 3 backs change up the back slogans for those of sports not in series 1 and series 2, including the Billiard players, so perhaps the cards were inserted in waves. Sutton and Hoppe are both Billiards cards though, perhaps there were 2 different print runs or 1 print run and 2 distribution runs?

March 1911 for T220 also is possible, as the backs end August 31, 1910. I had always thought this issue may not have been thought of as a separate set by ATC (Note it only features boxers but uses the same "Champion Athletes and Prize Fighters" series name) but as another T218 series in an expanded size, after T218-2 but before T218-3. No real indication if these Tolstoi's were issued at the same time as the Mecca's or after. T220 Silver certainly was issued first, as proven by the alteration of the image on Coburn's card (and indicated by the Donovan cards artwork changes as well). The Tolstoi's could not have been packed alongside T80, 1 of each in a pack, for every long as a T80 Tolstoi is much, much more common than a T220 Tolstoi.

What a find for the hobby! I'd seen some pages from this book before but the whole thing finally is a blast to go through. Shame that a majority of the original ledger is lost.

[D. Bergin]

Those are neat as hell.