Secrets revealed of T206 Ed Greminger Old Mill Brown with 649 Overprint card

May 29, 2024

Secrets revealed of PSA T206 Ed Greminger Old Mill Brown with 649 Overprint card

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Thank you for stopping by my channel. Today, I want to talk about this PSA Authentic T206 Ed Greminger card. This card was recently auctioned by Memory Lane and sold for $34,000. Normally, T206 Southern League player cards don’t sell for that much money. However, this card is very special because its Old Mill Southern League back was printed in brown ink, and it also has a factory 649 overprint that should only be found in Sweet Caporal 150 series back and this overprint was printed upside-down at the top of the card.

This one-of-a-kind unique back offers a few clues about how T206 backs were printed 100 years ago. This kind of weird card is the reason why majority of my collection consists of T206s that with errors/misprints/scrapes since “imperfect” cards reveal insights into the T206s printing process. As I mentioned, this Ed Greminger card has a brown Old Mill Southern League back and an upside-down factory 649 overprint bar on the top portion of the back. Before we dive deeper, let’s discuss Old Mill back variations. As most of you know, both regular Old Mill and Old Mill Southern League backs should be printed in black. However, very few T206 Southern League player cards (we are talking about less than 30 specimens) are found in brown color. (If you haven’t seen any of my videos discussing these brown backs, make sure to check them out. I’ve done comparisons of different shades of brown among Southern League backs and compared them to Brown Hindu and Brown Lenox backs.)

Now, let’s get back to the topic. There are a few theories about how these ultra-rare brown Old Mill Southern League backs were created. The most common theory is that, 100 years ago, the quality control was not that serious, and the printer mistakenly used the wrong ink on the limestone and printed a few Old Mill Southern League back sheets being printed in brown color.

Another theory suggests that since Southern League player cards can be found with Piedmont back, Brown Hindu backs and Old Mill Southern League backs. Since Hindu back was the only t206 back that was supposed to come in brown color. It was believed the printing factory was printing brown Hindu back sheets, and then when it was time to print Old Mill Southern League back sheets, the printer forgot to switch from brown to black ink and ended up creating a few brown Old Mill Southern League sheets.

A third theory is that printing factories had test sheets used to test of color shades and color key registrations, or even as training sheets for new printers. Some collectors refer these test sheets as scape sheets. Anyways, the theory goes that a printer was testing shade of colors and applied on Old Mill Southern League limestone and as a result, a few Old Mill Southern League test sheets were printed in brown. However, printer was supposed to destroy these scape sheets and not leaving them in distribution, but somehow some sheets survived and even got cut up and passed down to the next generations.

While we can’t confirm which theory or theories are correct, but one thing for sure is there were only a handful of brown Old Mill Southern League backs survived, and they were not meant to be inserted into tobacco products. We know this for sure since all legit brown backs like these were hand-cut and do not have the smooth straight factory cut.

Now, let’s discus the additional factory 649 overprint bar on this card. Typically, this red factory 649 overprint bar is found only on Sweet Caporal 150 series backs. That overprint was supposed to cover the original factory 30 back. Due to tax revenue laws, tobacco companies had to indicate where they manufactured and sold their products. That’s the reason why we see factory and district numbers on tobacco packs and tobacco cards. For Sweet Caporal products, the company pre-printed a lot of factory 30 sheets, and they might have printed too many. Then they came up with a brilliant idea that instead of wasting papers, they overlayed other factory numbers on top to cover the original factory 30 so that they can re-use those factory 30 sheets. And that’s the reason why we have these overlayed factory 42 and 649 overprint backs. What I am showing here are cards that have those overprint backs misaligned that reveal the original factory 30 number underneath.

Anyways, to the best of my knowledge, this Ed Greminger card is the only known brown Old Mill Southern League back with a factory 649 overprint bar. However, there’s another Sweet Caporal back that has a similar upside-down factory 649 overprint bar, but that printing error is easier to explain since factory 649 overprints are also found on Sweet Caporal backs, unlike this one on an Old Mill Southern League back. There is another known Ed Greminger card with a brown Old Mill Southern League back, but that is for another video in the future.

Now, let’s think a little deeper. As mentioned before, tobacco companies need to indicate where they manufactured and sold their products on the tobacco packaging. Many collectors believe T206 backs were printed in multiple printing factories and each factory might even be located within the same factory/district area that the products were sold. If this is true, now, the interesting part is…… Hindu backs are from factory 649 distinct 1st New York, and they were in brown color. So it makes sense that the same New York location was printing the factory 649 overprint for Sweet Caporal backs. However, for this Ed Greminger card, we are trying to complete the circle, as I mentioned earlier, T206 Southern League players can have Hindu brown and Old Mill Southern League backs. But one thing that could not connect all the dot is Old Mill Southern League backs were printed in Factory 25 district 2nd Virginia. How did those brown Old Mill Southern League scrap sheets end up from Virginia to New York? Perhaps there was just one single printing factory responsible for all front images and back advertisement printing? Who knows…. Obviously, there are many unknown about how and where were T206 backs were printed, but this Ed Greminger card provides some some insight and more dots that we might be able to connect when more information or discovery is available in the future. (This is something that we will never be able to find a firm answer)

Anyways… I know this video has a lot of information that many collectors never pay attention to, but I still hope you find this video useful and like my research. If you enjoy my work and want to support the channel, please share, subscribe, and leave feedback. If you have topics you would like me to investigate, please leave them in the comments. Thanks for watching.