For some time now there has been some contention regarding the existence of a Simon Nicholls (Hands On Knees) with a Sweet Caporal 150 No.649 OP back.
The card originally popped up on Scot readers research list and was most likely a typo or a bad eBay scan where a Nicholls card was shown with a wrong back scan and Scot logged it in as verified which was understandable. Later Ted Z. claimed to have completed the set in a "Mission Accomplished" thread:
http://www.net54baseball.com/showthread.php?t=91120
Since then Ted has been asked repeatedly to show the card to which he finally said he sold it. When a request was put in a thread on the board asking for proof of this front/back combo Ted posted a scan which was later determined to be the front of a Nicholls and the back was Delahanty. I personally viewed Ted's 649s at the Philly show to determine this. When I confronted Ted on this, his answer was he mixed this scans up.
The Sweet Caporal 649 OP set is 34 cards and most all cards surface quite often. There a few a little tougher but not due to being short printed as all 34 were printed in equal quantities and are not scarce. Some are tougher than others, but for reasons not related to this particular backs printing. Tim C. (Abravefan11) began putting this set together not too long ago and within 4 months at least one example of all 34 cards came to market. He has acquired 31 of the 34 and the other 3 are available for sale right now. So if you can complete the set in 6 months I wouldn’t consider any example rare or even scarce.
Even really obscure backs such as BL460, BL350, Uzit, Lenox and Hindu etc. we know of and see multiple player’s more than one example. Yet Simon Nicholls Sweet Cap 649 we’ve only heard of one example which was in Ted’s hands and then gone to a mystery collector just like the recent AB460’s…doesn’t add up. Wonka owns 2 of the three known Danny Murphy BL460’s. I would safely take a bet that any BL460 is way tougher than any Sweet Cap 649, and that SWC649 would surface much more than any BL460 I think most here would agree.
So as of today we don't have any proof that a Simon Nicholls 649 exists, yet it remains on the confirmed list on this site that many people trust to be accurate. And until Ted can really show this card, produce the buyer of this card or someone can show a graded example, I would not count this as a confirmed card.
Ted can’t take it off the list because he claims to have owned it, but if it doesn’t exist it shouldn’t be on the list regardless of what that means for Ted’s reputation.
"This card with the SWEET CAPORAL 150 Factory 649 (overprint) back is on my list since it has been seen. Scot Reader's T206 survey
of over 14,000 cards indicates that this card exists. I have said it exists; however, certain skeptics here choose not to believe me.
My experience collecting this particular SWEET CAP sub-set is that the HOFer's (George Davis, Griffith, Johnson, Lajoie, Marquard, and
Matty are quite available.
Guys like Alpermann, Bates, Goode, Tom Jones, Killian, Liebrandt, Powers, Ritchey, Sheckard, and Wilhelm are also seen quite often.
And, then there are certain subjects like Lake, McIntyre, Nicholls, Schmidt, Spencer, and Heine Wagner that are very tough to find.
I do not understand why this is so. I have compared my notes with others that collect this T206 sub-set and their experience is very
similar to mine."
TED Z
I would like to know who the others are that own a Nicholls 649 and share the same experience as you.