This trio of Piedmont 350s from the same sheet was sold recently by Huggins & Scott Auctions. Seeing them got me thinking about other cards that we know came from the same sheet. In his fantastic book, Inside T206, Scot Reader surmises that the total number of T206s produced could be over 100 million. Given this staggering estimate, it makes sense that finding two or more T206s that were printed on a single sheet is no easy task.
One of my favorite things about this set is that it lends itself very well to research. If you learn something about a certain pose or front/back combo, there is often a logical pattern to be followed, which will lead you to more discoveries. The same cannot really be said for today’s topic. Finding T206 sheet mates is very cool, but it usually is the result of random happenstance rather than a larger pattern. In that same vein, there will be little structure to this article. I mainly just wanted to post some of the coolest T206 sheet mates.
Most of the times that we’re able to trace multiple T206s back to the same sheet, they will be of the printer’s scrap variety. The reason for this is pretty simple. In order to make connections between two or more cards, there has to be something that makes them unique.
Take these Hoblitzell and Oakes Piedmont 350s. They showed up on eBay one day in a group of offerings from the same seller. I wasn’t able to find out anything about where they came from, but it doesn’t take much of a logical leap to assume they were cut from the same sheet and kept together all this time. Their large, hand-cut borders and darker-than-normal colors are a dead giveaway. I’m not sure there’s anything to be learned from them, but they sure are cool.
These three Blank Backs share a similar cut as well as adhesive residue on all four corners of the backs. They were clearly kept together in an album or frame for many years. They made their way to market via SCP auctions, where I was able to buy them and keep them together.
The “Lash’s Bitters” T206s are another example of printer’s scrap that work as puzzle pieces that help us to re-construct a sheet of T206 cards. I have an article in the works featuring these awesome scraps, so I’ll keep this description short. The back of these T206s was used as a test sheet for trade cards featuring “Lash’s Bitters”. The fronts look a little odd as well. They appear to be missing a layer of red.
T206 collector John Dreker was kind enough to send me scans of these four upside-down and mis-cut Piedmont 150s that he owns. He found Davis in a group of 40 cards he bought in 2000, then bought Tannehill, Doolin, and Cicotte together in the same group in 2002.
This group of cards has been dubbed the “Test Print Sheet”. As you can see, the backs have a lot going on.
Much like the Lash’s Bitters sheet above, the back of the sheet that Griffith, Lake, and O’Leary were on was used as a test sheet for a Twin Oaks Tobacco advertisement.
This quartet of Blank Backs are very likely to have originated from the same sheet.
problem: We would have to meet face to face. No trade of this magnitude can be done remotely. As fate would have it I had a work appointment within a one-hour drive of this collector. So we agreed to meet to see if a trade was possible. I flew out a day early, met with him
