1948 Leaf Nicknames
 

I've read up some on Steve Van Buren including a really good Kindle book on the 48 title game in the blizzard called "Give it to Steve" and it seems like he did have the nicknames: "Wham Bam" and "Supersonic Steve", but not "Big Boy". That seems completely made up.

The only nickname I found on George McAfee is "One Play" and since Gorgeous George was a wrestler, this one seems suspect to me as well.

Sammy Baugh, they got correct using "Slingin".

Has anyone else ever noticed this? Could someone working at Leaf who didn't know much about football have just made up some nicknames or were these legitimate nicknames that I never heard of?

That's a great question! There are definitely others in the set that are legitimate nicknames like Clyde "Bulldog" Turner and Charlie "Choo Choo" Justice but some of them I've certainly never heard of.

jeff

Thanks Jeff. As a Van Buren fan, its taken me a while to get used to that card. Van Buren and Bednarik rookies were the first vintage cards I started searching for and I still don't have either nor any 48 Leaf or 48 Bowman. I recently saw an image of a really nice green jersey SVB (the Eagles did wear green after all) and its still on my want list, but just as I'm getting used to the black and white heads "pasted" on colored background, the nicknames started to bother me again.

If you decide to pick them up, the Leaf '48 of SVB is pretty obtainable but the Bednarik is a SP and a bear to find for a reasonable price.

jeff

The 48 Bednarik... - it was the first vintage auction I ever bid on - once it jumped over $600, I was pretty puzzled - then I realized PSA uses the Bednarik as the cover story for the set: http://www.psacard.com/Articles/Arti...years-of-no-60

I gave up on the 48 Bednarik since I wasn't collecting the set - I think a PSA 4 sold for over $1000, but I can't remember. I settled on the 50 Bowman Bednarik, which is really nice - 50 Bowman reminds me of the 35 Chicles in terms of artistry.

For SVB, I've never seen one that looks as green as this image (I hope it is ok I post it - I don't know who owns the card - I just saved the image). When I see the green jersey variation, the jersey usually looks washed out. And I think the "blue" is the most common (please correct me if I'm wrong), but I also suspect the blue and yellow may not have been intended - I'm guessing they are cases where the green didn't come out right.... I'm sure others must have theories about all the variations, I'm just guessing.

It's not really the fact that PSA used the Bednarik as a cover story. ALL of the SP's are low POP and incredibly tough to find. The stars that are SP's are really expensive as well as being hard to find. Some of the SP commons are tough, tough, tough as well.

Wait till you try to get the Leo Nomellini in decent condition ;-)

jeff

Jeff, you think 48 Leaf is tougher to put together than 35 Chicle? And which is more expensive in say mid-grade?

A good question. From a $$$ perspective, Chicle is more difficult mainly due to Nagurski. However, there are 49 SP's in the Leaf set and 3x as many cards in the set. From a POP report perspective, there are more Leaf's than Chicles out and available.

I would say Chicle is still more difficult due to the $$$ it takes to get the Nags and SP's plus much lower POPs on some of their cards but the size of the Leaf set and # of SP's still makes it a pretty significant challenge. Finding some Leaf's that are well centered is a big challenge as well.

jeff

Thanks Jeff.