On February 6th, 2016, Pat Romolo posted a thread on net54 titled “I Believe This Could Be A Complete Horizontal Layout For This T206 Sheet”. In it, he goes into great detail on how he put together a complete Piedmont 150 sheet, using Plate Scratches on the backs of the cards. I asked Pat to explain his Piedmont 150 Plate Scratch project, and this is what he said,
At some point, damage occurred to a few of the stones used for the Piedmont 150 back plates. The damage might have been caused by something between the stones or something on a shelf or pallet that they were stored on. It’s also possible that it could have been caused by cracks in the limestone, but I’m leaning more towards the scratches.
This two part series is meant to be a companion piece to Pat’s net54 thread. Think of them as a Cliffs Notes of sorts. I’ve done my best to summarize the most significant discoveries Pat has made, but I strongly urge you to follow this link and read the net54 thread in its entirety:
I Believe This Could Be A Complete Horizontal Layout For This T206 Sheet
In Part One, we’ll take a look at some of the most important posts from the thread:
Post #2
Pat unveils the complete sheet, which he has re-created. This particular sheet is composed of 17 different poses from left to right and each pose is repeated 12 times vertically (the image at the top of this article).
Post #13
Erick Summers responds to an earlier question by pointing out that to date, no Piedmont 150 backed “two-namer” card has been found with a plate scratch. The sheet that Pat re-created has the same subjects repeated vertically. We know that some sheets had more than one player in a vertical column because a number of “two-namer” cards like the Hinchman-Stovall below have been found. The fact that no “two-namers” have been found with a plate scratch means the sheet layouts were changed over time. Before Pat put this sheet together, I think most T206 collectors (at least the ones who are really into the minutiae) believed that most sheets were 17 poses wide and featured at least 2 subjects repeated vertically.*
Post #34
In response to a comment made by a member who was having trouble understanding the significance of the project, Pat posted an additional bit of supporting evidence. Seymour (Batting) and Cicotte appear next to each other on the re-created sheet because the Plate Scratches on the back show that they were neighbors. Pat posted front scans of each pose sharing a pink mark on the front that confirms they were right next to each other.
Post #45
Pat posts a scan of a mis-cut Sheckard (No Glove Showing) with Goode showing on the right side with a Sweet Caporal 150 Factory 30 back. One of the missing spots in Pat’s template was next to Goode. Pat had looked for a Sheckard with Plate Scratch for awhile with no luck until finding one that fit the template the day he made this post.
Post #47
Pat posts:
I was pretty sure before but now I’m positive this sheet mirrors a SC150/649
sheet and I think this is one of two 649 sheets that were printed.
This is a huge discovery. I had wondered in the past how the 34 poses in the Sweet Caporal 150 Factory 649 subset were chosen. The players chosen never made much sense to me. Pat has proven they were selected pretty much at random. The printers just used two sheets that they had handy.
Post #50
Pat posts a summary of what he has learned up to that point.
*The 460 Only series is an exception to this loose rule of thumb. To date, we haven’t found any “two-namers” from the 460 Only Series, leading us to believe that vertical rows most likely featured only one pose.