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<< Connie Mack traded Simon Nicholls to Cleveland Dec 1909. He played only 3 games for Clev. in April of 1910, then retired from MLB.

Given the timeline of the Summer/Fall of 1910 for late DRUM print runs, I can understand why Nicholls was printed with DRUM.

Furthermore, it has become apparent that the 37 subjects printed with DRUM backs were also printed with AB 350NF backs. >>

Here's a far-fetched theory.

ALC, in the early stage of 350/460 production, wanted to take Doyle (Hands Above) out of production entirely since they knew they had gotten his team (league) wrong and had to change the caption by scratching "Nat'l" from the plate.

BUT if they wanted to drop Doyle (Hands Above) from further production, they ALSO had to drop other subjects from his sheet(s) to make those sheet(s) fit. (whatever "fit" might mean -- that is beyond the scope of this post).

So, ALC went about looking at the career trajectories of all the players on the Doyle (Hands Above) sheet(s).

In the end, they elected to drop Rhoades (Right Arm Extended) since his career ended in 1909; and Nichols since his career ended in very early 1910; and Smith (Chicago White Cap) and Kleinow (N.Y. Catching) since they had been traded in the 1910 season.

But, since Smith and Kleinow (unlike Rhoades and Nichols) were still playing (albeit for different teams), ALC reintroduced them as Smith (Chicago and Boston) and Kleinow (Boston) in the 460 series.

Scot

Edited to add: Forgot to mention in my hypothetical that by the time the decision was made, at least one of the Nichols sheets (assuming he was printed on multiple sheets) had already undergone a short production run with AB 350 NF and Drum.