Posted By:
warshawlawthanks all for your thoughts.
one of the toughest issues is determining whether an item reached the level of actual distribution. graziano is a perfect example. was it printed and released then pulled when the lawyer wrote in? if so you'd expect there to be quite a few out there, a la the wagner. was it printed and replaced before distribution? maybe, if leaf trashed an entire print run, which i doubt it did (it would probably have been cheaper to pay him off). i therefore tend to think it is a proof that went out the factory door and was replaced with the willie pep before actual issuance of the set. since so many of these issues are "shrouded in mystery" since the manufacturers either did not keep records or are long since gone, we will never know.
who owns the bones of leaf today? maybe their pr department would be able to answer the question. . . you'd be surprised what a flack will do.
master set building is a really interesting concept, but I think it is probably a futile exercise with most anything issued pre 1981. take T206 for example. we know some backs exist for some cards but we don't absolutely know every back that exists for every card. for example, wasn't our "universe" expanded a while ago when a wagner surfaced with a different back on it? when i try to master set build, i limit myself to the base set plus 1 type of each variation. in the 1948 leaf boxing, for example, this is all 49 regular issue cards plus a blank back plus a wrong back (resulted from the sheet being inserted upside down for the second printing). if there is a blank front, i'd probably want one too.
the point on the OJ's is really interesting. good luck on ever running down the final master set of these. i've compiled a pretty good checklist of OJ boxers of various formats, but i cannot even say whether each format has each card or whether they are replicated in the gypsy queen branding (which is so darn hard to find, btw, that i've only seen a few since i began tracking this stuff a few years ago).