T220 Silver - Uncut Edition

[G1911]

I want to correct some false assumptions I had earlier and then forgot to come update until reaching this part of editing my notes.

T225-1 is in the Fullgraff record book, with some mostly uncut proofs glued into the book. Fullgraff and his employer, Brett Lithography, the printers of this silver sheet, are the person and company who Dick Hyland signed the rights of his image use, pursuant to the NY law. The record book tells us production was between February and May of 1910 in 3 different product runs (possibly more; the records may not be complete and only encompass one facility). So we know T225-1 is printed by Brett, and we have the contract for one of the subjects permitting it.

One thing that has long been noted as odd is that the Ball letter is made out by American Lithographic, the source for the long-standing hobby belief that ALC printed all the T cards at their NY headquarters (not true).

The Hyland contract, unlike the letter to Ball (it's not the contract itself, just a letter connected with it), makes no mention of what his image is to be used for or tobacco at all. It is made out to the lithographer, not the actual issuer. This is rather odd; typically a company using a persons image in marketing material pays that person or secures their permission and then has whoever does their printing make it.

The reason for this seems to be because images were desired to be used for multiple clients. T225-1 is not an ATC release; Khedievial is firmly independent. While some firms appear to operate independently but the records suggest are shadow subsidiaries of a Monopoly in the Sherman era, the ATC was busy suing Khedivial for rolling oval cigarettes that violated a patent from 1908-1910, their executives cited Khedivial as a top competitor, and nothing I have ever been able to find suggests that Khedivial was a shadow subsidiary. Hyland's rights were given to the lithographer so they could sell his image to the Khedivial/Surbrug Co. (T225) and to the ATC (T218/T226). This did not happen often in T card land; there are very few T sets that are not done for the ATC, but even the same printers did at least some of those cards. It seems to have been the purpose though. As we have seen from E229, it may bleed into more caramel cards of the period as well that followed the exact same timeline.

It is possible T225-2 has so many obscure and insignificant subjects because someone at the ATC didn't like this and, as the much larger client, changed how the contracts worked or pressured their friends at the ALC and it's semi-independent subsidiaries, an ally of the ATC. Just a theory for the italicized portion.