printing machines

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Posted By: gary

just curious if anyone knew about any tobacco card printing machines or old templates turning up? Were the cards printed in the tobacco factories themselves , or were they printed by an outside source? it would be neat to see the old equipment/printing supplies...

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Posted By: hankron

Presumably, the printing was done outside ... Putting aside baseball cards, you likely can find a musuem that has old printing machinery, etc for display. The history of printing & printing machinery is a big subject internatioally. If you don't specialize in sports cards, a collector can find a wide variety of collectable printing items-- plates, machinery, proofs, etc.

For collectors of Pre-WWII baseball cards, the only original printing-house material readily available, other than the cards themselves, are the original art (i.e. Diamond Stars paintings), proofs, printers scraps and uncut sheets.

Original printing plates for early lithographic cards are not known (to me) to exist. Lithographic cards includes the T206s, T2065, colorful caramel cards, Allen & Ginter and all those brighly colored cards ... No one's going to find the original T206 plates and print up 5,000 more Honus Wagners

Printing plates or pieces used to make other other early baseball items can occasionally be found. These are usually not for a trading card, but something like a newspaper picture. Tf obscure, these are collectable.

If you go to more modern times (1950s- today), a collector can find a wider vareity of original printing house material for baseball cards-- most from the Topps 'vault.'

Though not common in baseball, in the fine arts it was not rare for the original Rembrandt or Albrech Durer printing plates to be kept around for years after his death and a wide variety of 'post-death' prints to be made. In many cases, the later prints are themselves often hundreds of years old and done by the artist's student or wife and can have some value. If you see an art expert holding a Rembrandt etching to the light, he may be looking to see if the print has the correct watermark to be an original. A serious collector can obtain a catalog of the watermarks used by Rembrandt or Durer, so she can do her own sluething.

To prevent later prints, many famous artists 'cancelled the plate,' to prevent further printing. Francis Bacon, for example, would make a small print run of say 30 lithographs, then he would literally deface the printing plate by writing 'Cancelled' across the image. This would prevant any more undefaced prints to be made-- ensuring to the collector the limitedness of the print. To prove that the print was cancelled, one example of the defaced/'cancelled' print would be made.


This is a print made from the cancelled printing plate. This image on the plate has been ruined, so as to prevent any more undefaced prints to be made