Who is the scarce 1948 Leaf boxing card??

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Posted By: Jim Manos

Thanks in advance...

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Posted By: Jeff Lichtman

Graziano

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Posted By: peter chao

Jim,

I'll just take a wild guess, the Jack Dempsey is rare but not scarce.

Peter

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Posted By: Jim Manos

Thank you.

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Posted By: Peter Spaeth

Boxer:Rocky Graziano
Year: 1948
Company:Leaf
Series: Boxing
Card No:??

Information courtesy of boxingcollectors.com

This card is the ultimate boxing collector's card. Although it doesn't come close to it's rare baseball counterparts in terms of value, it is still as rare.

For years collectors thought that the Leaf gum company's "Knockout" set consisted of 49 cards, erratically numbered. Indeed, uncut sheets of the cards could be found that were exactly 7 cards by 7 cards. Then, about 10 years ago, a Rocky Graziano Leaf emerged and since then one more have been found

The Graziano card may not have been released except by accident or may have been recalled. One owner of the card says he got his in a trade with a neighborhood friend in New York City in 1949 so they must have been available (information courtesy of www.boxingcollectors.com).

A recent auction saw the Graziano Leaf card (PSA VG-EX 4) sold for $17,903 (see here).

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Posted By: Jeff Lichtman

This card is harder to find than a Wagner, honestly. Only 3 total on the pop report.

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Posted By: Paul Kaufman

Card # 50

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Posted By: peter chao

Guys,

What's a reasonable price for the Graziano in a PSA 4.

Peter

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Posted By: Jeff Lichtman

I'll give you $5000 for one, right now.

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Posted By: Sean BH

$17,904 with inflation.

Sean BH

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Posted By: Jeff Lichtman

Ok, $6000. Not a penny more.

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Posted By: peter chao

Jeff,

I picked up both a Jack Dempsey and a Joe Louis from the '48
Leaf Set in about PSA 3 or 4 condition for about 75 each. Don't have a Graziano, and if $5,000 is the going price, this will simply be another set I won't be able to complete.

Peter

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Posted By: Anthony

6K would be a steal (double that would be), and I'm sure you'll have buyers lined up should you come across one for anywhere near that price. Most likely you will never see one at any price, it is incredibly rare.
Dempsey is very easy, as are the other 48 in the set, at least in mid grade.

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Posted By: Jimmy Piccuito

I have come across many of the rare boxing cards in the hobby, looking through collections, but Graziano is and will always be the toughest boxing card in existence. Joe Louis and Dempsey can be very tough in high grade - many can be found in mid-grade. I know it sounds crazy but if I had a chance to buy the Graziano in high grade vs. a real low grade Wagner at the same price - the Graziano would be my choice

Take Care Jimmy

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Posted By: boxingcardman

If anyone has a Graziano, it would bring better than $10,000 even if in a "1" slab given today's market.

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Posted By: Ted Zanidakis

Here is the 49-card Leaf set in one neat picture. Rocky Graziano (#50) was printed on the very 1st press run
and was located on this sheet in the lowermost right corner. Graziano immediately forced Leaf to remove his
card (for reasons unknown). Arturo Godoy replaced Rocky on this sheet.

This was really a damn shame for boxing fans and collectors, because 1948 was the year of the great champ-
ionship contests between Graziano and Tony Zale....and everyone wanted Rocky's card.





TED Z collection

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Posted By: boxingcardman

Where are you getting that from?

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Posted By: Ted Zanidakis

Around the time (1984), when I acquired this uncut LEAF boxing sheet, there was a lot of interest in this
set and especially the Graziano card. A collector in Florida, Pete Waldman (who was one of the few who
owned a Graziano card), wrote an article on the scarcity of this card. I met him at the Willow Grove Show
and I showed him my uncut sheet and (if I recall correctly) he informed me of the Godoy/Graziano replace-
ment. If not him, then someone else mentioned it to me back then; and, I'll have to search my archives to
find who it was.

TED Z

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Posted By: boxingcardman

If I understand correctly about 36 years after the fact another collector told you that he thought it was so, and that is the basis of your statement? Lawyers call that "hearsay" and it isn't good evidence because it rests on a foundation of supposition. I have never seen anything solid to support any particular theory of replacement on Graziano. I've never seen a Graziano on a sheet or anything else from Leaf itself (such as a preliminary checklist) showing how the Graziano fit into the mix. The placement sequence of the cards themselves on the sheet tells us nothing since the skip-numbered set is randomly laid out on the sheet and not grouped by card number, background color, era or other discernable factor.

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Posted By: Ted Zanidakis

Fine, you "you do't buy it"....I happen to accept it....based on the expertise of the guy (with
respect to these cards) that I heard it from. I don't recall all the details; but, I haven't heard
a better story, since....So, what is your story ?....I take it, if you are skeptical, you must have
another version to this story.

Godoy was no rookie in 1948, as you know, he fought a full 15 rounds with Joe Louis in 1940.
The real mystery here is not Godoy, but the Graziano card. This card only exists with WHITE
cardboard stock. For those of you not familiar with this 1948 Leaf set, it was 1st printed on
WHITE cardboard stock, and in a subsequent printing (in late 1948) it was printed on GRAY
cardboard.

So, we can conclude from this that during the very 1st press run, this card was replaced.....
it's the same old story as the T206 Wagner, Magie or Doyle cards....except this Rocky card
is much more scarce than any of them.

TED Z

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Posted By: Rich Klein

And since I don't follow boxing cards nearly as closely as I do baseball cards -- Lew Lipset had an uncut sheet for sale (with Graziano) in an printed old judge auction. Or at the very least this was covered in an Old Judge newsletter (If someone has the time, might be worth doing a quick scan)

I have most of the material, and in about 3 months, when I have a chance to really dig in, I'll check that out.

I think Ted's supposition is correct as Fleer did that in 1963 with the Adcock/Checklist variation. This is from memory, and while I'm not as good as Ted, I tend to agree with him on this subject.

Regards
Rich

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Posted By: Richard L.

In regards to the Graziano card, I recall about 20-25 years ago, one offered in an auction(can't recall the auctioneer) and appeared to have been hand-cut,(could this be a clue) does anyone else remember that one?

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Posted By: Josh Adams

Ted, please check your email.

Thanks,
Josh

Go Go White Sox
2005 World Series Champions!

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Posted By: boxingcardman

However, I don't believe in creating myths to fill in factual gaps, either. Our hobby is prone to mythmaking to explain inconsistencies, knowledge gaps, etc. There are no facts explaining where the Graziano card sat on the original sheet. As someone who attempts to catalog the facts relating to these cards, I try to divorce myth, fiction and assumptions from fact.

With regard to printing stock, once again, you are letting your conclusions run away from the facts. What we know about the cards are that they were offered on two stocks. What you have assumed is that the white stock went first because the Graziano is on the white stock. That doesn't meant the white stock came first. It means that the sheet(s) with Graziano were run on white stock. For all we actually know, both kinds of stock were used at the same time.

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Posted By: Jay

Let me shed a little light on the cardboard stock issue. For 1948 Leaf football cards the cream colored cardboard came before the gray stock. This can be seen by the fact that the low numbers all have cream colored backs while the high numbers all come with both cream colored and gray stock. Once we got to the 1949 Leaf football set the only option was gray stock. Now I don't know when in 1948 the boxing set was issued. However, from the way the football set was produced it would not be hard for me to believe that the cream colored boxing backs came before the gray backs.

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Posted By: boxingcardman

If there was an uncut sheet out there with Graziano, that would resolve everything.

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Posted By: Anthony

Is the sequence of Leaf:
'48 Football (cream, then grey stock)
'48 Boxing (white, then grey, or possibly vice versa?)
'49 Baseball
'49 Football?

where do the pirates fall in this sequence? I believe they are white stock?

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Posted By: Ted Zanidakis

ADAM W

There is no "myth" that I am concocting regarding the WHITE vs GRAY stock. The 1948 LEAF Pirates
(of the Seas) set preceded the Boxing and Football sets that year and was printed on WHITE stock.

Then the Boxing set was 1st issued printed on WHITE stock Followed by the FootBall set in
the Fall of '48 printed on WHITE stock.

Subsequently, both these Boxing and FB sets were printed on GRAY stock (either late in '48, or early
1949). Followed by the 1949 BB issue in early Spring of '49, and in the Fall of '49, the FB issue....BOTH
OF THESE SETS ON GRAY STOCK, only.

To emphasize, this sequence of events is exactly as it happened....no myth....ADAM, this is not "hearsay".

How am I certain of this....I collected all these sets as a kid back then and I still have all my original cards.
Furthermore, I have a very accurate recollection of these events from my youth.

T-Rex TED

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Posted By: boxingcardman

Your prior post had no facts stated, just a conclusion. Now you've stated the facts as you recall them. Thanks.

Didn't know you were such an old fart

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Posted By: paulgrubor

My Graziano Leaf boxing card story...

I'm the seller that auctioned off the Rare 1948 Leaf Graziano card via a Sports Collectors Digest auction in the late 1980's. The story behind this rare card is as follows. My wife and I were set up at a Sun Times show in Chicago and we met a Doctor from Streator, Il and we became good friend with this person. He mentioned that Streator was a big Baseball town and that we should come there on a buy trip. We ran ads in the local paper and did buy a 1963 presentation set along with a wonderful collection of old Bobbing heads.
A Honus Wagner Ball also was offered but we passed on it because we were mainly sellers of sportscards (darn it). We had a great time and purchased quite a few nice collections.

We arrived home and the Doctor called us about three days later and said he was contacted by a local business man that had quite a nice collection of sets from the 50's and 60's. He was unable to make it during our previous visit so we set up a time and date to visit his furniture store located in downtown Streator. Upon arriving we walked in his backroom and lined up on 4 back to back eight foot tables were stacks and stacks of cards with alot of complete sets. Included was a stack of Ringside and Leaf boxing cards that were added to the final purchase price. Upon leaving the store my wife noticed a nice recliner and asked about the price. The owner threw it in and we put it in the trunk and tied it down...True story..It was January and we had a back seat loaded with vintage cards and froze all the way home.

I never really had boxing cards so I offered them to a collector in Milwaukee for $500.00 for the group but he passed. I decided to run an SCD auction with the cards and kept getting calls to end the Graziano card early. I told my wife that something is up with this card because I swear I had at least 15 calls to end early. The card ended up at $1100.00 or so and I was shocked. There were 2 bidders on the line and I kept switching back and forth with bids increasing by the second. The card was creased and by todays standards would grade a 2 or 3. Anyway, thats my story on the Graziano card that the original stated was purchased in the Chicago area during his childhood.

Paul Grubor

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Posted By: Carl Lamendola

Both myself and my friend, Jim have owned two different Graziano cards. About 10-15 years ago at a local flea market in the Buffalo Area a guy had one in a book. I traded him a built-up Lost in Space Aurora model robot for it. A big non-sports dealer, Mark Angert in Ft. Lauderdale told me he would give me $1500 for it. The next day it was Fedex-ed to him. He sold it to someone else. It had one real bad corner on it (chewed up). A few years after that, my other friend Paul called me from Ft. Washington and told me that it was on dispaly in an auction house's case 1 of 2/3 known to exist. I think it was Soetheby's. IT sold for I think about $8K....A few years after that my friend Jim picked one up for Greg Manning's Steve Novella at the time for I think $6K. Anyway, he had to sell it, and I think it was his I think that it was his that eventually sold for $17K. I also was told (but have never seen one)that other skipped nos exist. So, there have to be more...keep hunting !!!