OK, I have looked through the Net54 posts, my Old Cardboard magazines, the Standard Catalog,and every other vintage article that I can find, but I can't find the info that I want. Maybe I dreamed this. Anyway, I remember reading that Keith Olberman had identified a T206 Krause pitching with a gray cap, and a Nicholls Hands on Knees with an "A" on his cap.

So, has anyone seen these cards? Are these legit variations or some sort of printng errors?

Wondering in Wisconsin,

Rick

I think they were proof cards

Rick,

Krause (Gray Cap) was discussed in K. Olbermann, "How Many Cards in the T206 Set?" VCBC Jan./Feb. 1997, 22-24. There, he writes:

"The ordinary pitching pose of Harry Krause of the A's has him in a distinctly white cap. This one in front of me has a gray one. Not completely gray, mind you. Gray bill, gray edges, but salt-and-pepper in the middle, as if it were almost an attempt at giving a tweed effect. Could've been drawn with a pencil, I suppose; except under very bright light, there doesn't seem to be any impression marks--even faint ones. The gray cap reflects light the same way as the blue sky background does. And there's the small matter of the name and team lettering, which differs from all of the 'white cap' cards I've seen. On this gray cap version, the lettering is resting right under the bottom outline border--nearly touching it. And the point of the 'A' in 'KRAUSE' isn't sitting up as high as it does on the white cap versions I've seen. What it looks like, in short, is a bad first effort. Maybe it was. Came to me through an Alan Rosen auction in the late '80s. Of the five cards I'm listing here, this is the one about which I have the most doubt."

Rick,

Regarding Nicholls ("A" on Cap) from the same publication:

"There's no 'A' on the cap of any Athletics' player in the series. Yet, thumbing through a pile of T206 commons in my pal Matt Federgreen's store in Beverly Hills six or seven years ago, something struck me about this particular card of Nicholls with hands on knees. There was something wrong with the cap. Instead of the usual, faint vertical stripes, was a letter 'A'--consistent in design wiht the team logo shown prominently on most of the uniforms of the Athletics' players in the series. It was blurry, it was indistinct, but it was there. I wasn't sure, so I sent it to Lew Lipset. He saw it, too. Definitely there--a blurry 'A' at the correct angle where a letter or insignia would be on a baseball cap. And those thin vertical stripes emanating from the point of Nicholls' cap in all the other copies I've ever seen just arn't there on this one."

Scot

Hi Scot, thank you for the info that you provided. I remember reading it somewhere, but I only have VCBC mags going back to 1999.

I would love to take a look at those cards.

Thanks again!

Rick

Rick, if you're still curious about where you initially read about these 'design' variations, you probably read it in Scot's own book, in footnote 2 on page 1. I've been so curious about this issue since the Krause variation has not been discussed in past threads, at least that I could find. Thanks for pursuing it, and thanks, Scot, for responding. I vote for design variation, not printer's error, although I've never seen one.
Deb

Deb, Thanks for the info. I have been wracking my little brain trying to remember where I came across this info and you hit the nail on the head, so now I can go back to Scot's book for the reference.

There must be hundreds of Nicholls and Krause cards around the hobby and it seems strange that another sample of these oddities hasn't surfaced. What happened to the original cards that KO came across? Did he purchase them? If not, then someone purchased them from from these dealers and the cards are sitting in someone's collection. Maybe they are aware of the variations or maybe the owners just think that they have regular old Nicholls and Krause cards.



Thanks again,

Rick

P.S. After rereading Scot's post, it may be that both of these cards are in KO's collection, or they may have been in his collection at one time.