Posted By:
Hal LewisTHANK YOU, Peter.
Your information makes perfect sense.
The Leaf company had to get PERMISSION to make and distribute likenesses of EVERY player in their set...
so they only needed to get that permission ONE time for EACH player before they could produce cards of that player.
In other words, they must have still been waiting on copyright permission to make the Paige and Ruth and Robinson cards when January 1, 1949 rolled around...
whereas they must have already received permission to make the Spahn and Musial and DiMaggio cards in late 1948.
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Again, this is consistent with what Barry said earlier.
The "copyright" date is only indicative of when Leaf received permission to make a baseball card of that particular player... NOT when the card was printed or the printing press was engraved.
The "gray cardboard" and the language on the backs of the cards and the historical perspective of collectors makes it seem as if ALL of the cards may very well have been PRINTED and DISTRIBUTED in early 1949.
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Like I said, a "1948" Satchell Paige would not only have to have a different copyright date... but the LANGUAGE about "this year" would also have to be different.
I won't believe it until I see it.