To me the why is the puzzle.
Boxing and Football don't have as many differences in the printing, and If I'm not messing up the timeline came out before Baseball.

My general feeling was that it wasn't poor sales, but much better than expected sales.
The shop I worked for saved the masks used to make the plates for a long time. Some for years. At least until the Hunts drove silver up... Anyway, we could have easily reprinted many jobs exactly the same as earlier.

But if Leaf printed to their expected sales, and threw out the masks, those would have to be redone.
The other possibility would be responding to complaints, like "who wants a PINK baseball card!"
Or having another place do more cards when needed.
Or... if the ones with the lines came first, eliminating the lines would make the job cheaper as it uses less ink. That little difference may not seem like a lot, but over a lot of sheets it adds up.

Ted, did you get many of the pink ones, and do you recall if they were early or came later?

1949 LEAF set....tidbits
 

Hi Steve

I am one of the few guys (or probably the only guy) left on Net54 that collected the 1948 thru 1949 LEAF cards (Pirates, Boxers, BB, and FB).
I kept the Baseball and Boxing cards. But, sold most of my Pirates and Football cards.

You are correct....LEAF did not expect how popular these cards would be (especially their Sportscards). For example, the 1948 Boxers were so popular, Leaf continued printing
them into 1949 (check out the Tony Zale examples).

http://photos.imageevent.com/tedzan7...ZaleZale25.jpg
1948 issue .................................................. ....... 1949 issue
http://photos.imageevent.com/tedzan7...1949Zale18.jpg





This BB set has one of the highest ratios of HOFers/Subjects (20/98) than most BB sets. Of the 20 - HOFers in the 1949 LEAF set, the Indians lead with these 5 - HOFers:
Spring series cards

http://photos.imageevent.com/tedzan7...udreau25xb.jpghttp://photos.imageevent.com/tedzan7...oudreau25x.jpg.http://photos.imageevent.com/tedzan7...eGordon25x.jpg



Summer series cards (short-prints)

http://photos.imageevent.com/tedzan7...afPaige25x.jpg..http://photos.imageevent.com/tedzan7...eafDoby25x.jpg..http://photos.imageevent.com/tedzan7...AFFeller25.jpg



LEAF's Quality Control left a lot to be desired..... as you and I know from having traded and compared our numerous color variations. For example......

And then, there is BLUE or no BLUE.
http://photos.imageevent.com/tedzan7...izellplatt.jpg
I had a near mint Jackie Jensen with a white background (like the above Mizell Platt.card). I regret selling it years ago.

http://photos.imageevent.com/tedzan7...ieJensen25.jpg


TED Z

T206 Reference
.

Doesn't this make the Leaf cards a regional issue like the Bond and Swell sets that predated the leaf cards? No southern or Western distribution. Barely an east coast distribution.

The Leaf premiums I found were in a scrapbook put together in Minneapolis.

Hi Dan

Thanks for posting the Minneapolis venue.

My conversations with many old-time 1949 LEAF collectors (like me) over the years verifies that these cards
were distributed throughout the U.S. east of the Mississippi River including Northern and Southern states.


TED Z

T206 Reference
.

I wish I knew where I put the scrapbook, I'd go back and see if I can find dates on the articles in the pages closest to the premiums, it might narrow down when this kid got the premiums. When I do find it I'll be sure to add that info to this thread.

I love all this research. My avatar depicts the 2nd series sheet. I was able to place cards primarily through the use of wrong back cards which are typically miscut on the back. Many board members have helped me acquire wrong backs & I have only six left to complete my personal grail. I'm not sure if they even survived or still exist but please keep me in mind if you find one. If anyone needs any info off them just shoot me a message

That's the MO when presented with opposing facts to the theories like the Rosen find pack in the REA auction that says Baseball Bubble Gum on it or the Dahlen Brooklyn with the factory sheet number that shows he was printed with the 150/350 subjects not the 350 only subjects just to name a couple.

One would think that, when caught not having what one claims to have (in this case evidence from alleged ‘research’ disproving the Sevchuk claim and Florida origin of the find), that one would drop the issue instead of bringing it up, for no reason or gain, again in unrelated threads. It’s a shame some folks just make up non-existent “research” to support an idea they like without any regard to the truth.

Here's two images for reference

The first is a complete uncut sheet. (I've seen this around but not sure who the first to post was, I think I first saw it on toppsaholic blog). It depicts a complete sheet as four identical 7x7 panels. Given the short run of Leaf cards I assume that all sets were done the same way. Among my errors I have a few that would question this but certainly that seems the way it was done for production.

The second image is my depiction of an uncut panel of Rare Leafs. These cards were placed by very fun research and collecting of error and miscut cards (which may be most leafs tbh)

That's pretty neat and I bet a lot of fun to reconstruct Steve.

I'm not very versed on the Leaf set but I do do a lot of research on variations in different sets so I picked the Jensen (Jansen) card to do some research on and I came up
with as many as 4 possible variations with 2 color variations for for each one of them for a total of 8 possible variations for each subject on the first series sheet.

On the background color variations I think it has more to do with a difference in cardstock than it does the the actual ink color used. On the pink or
pinkish variations the fronts seem to be a whiter stock and it also feels thicker to me.

I researched 386 Jensen cards and here's what I found

This is the first variation and by far the most common with 236 or 61.13% of the Jensen's I checked.

This variation has no white above the hat and they all have a round black dot in the J

The one on the right has a pinkish hue in hand but for some reason it looks more orange in my scan

[IMG]https://photos.imageevent.com/patric...rge/img290.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]https://photos.imageevent.com/patric...rge/img291.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]https://photos.imageevent.com/patric...ale/img292.jpg[/IMG]


The next variation has a big white area above his hat and this is the variation that has all of the pink variations in it. There were 62 of the 386 or 16.06% of this variation
and 25-30% were pink or around 5% of the 386. I also think this is the variation on the sheet Ted posted.

[IMG]https://photos.imageevent.com/patric...rge/img293.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]https://photos.imageevent.com/patric...rge/img294.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]https://photos.imageevent.com/patric...ale/img296.jpg[/IMG]

The next variation has a smaller white area above his hat and is the least common with 28 or 6.99% of the 386.

The one on the right is also pinker in hand than it is in the scan
[IMG]https://photos.imageevent.com/patric...rge/img299.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]https://photos.imageevent.com/patric...rge/img300.jpg[/IMG]

the Last variation has no white above his hat and no black dot in the J there were 60 or 15.54% of the 386 of this variation.

I don't have the two variations of this one yet.

[IMG]https://photos.imageevent.com/patric...e/large/05.jpg[/IMG]

I think the stock differences do affect the color of the red a bit.

I hadn't started doing the stock differences, as I've concentrated on the large variety of differences on the fronts.

Of the ones Pat has posted, the last one is the only one I didn't have an image of.

Up close, do any of them show yellow anywhere? Having or not having the yellow could affect how the red seems too.


One thing I like is the images of the edges. You can see the diagonal lines where the cutting blade had tiny nicks.

Great work as always Pat, your patience is amazing. A question for you or maybe better for SteveB. If a complete sheet has four panels & four Jensens, how are those panels created? ie; would we expect a variation in one panel or a change in the entire sheet as a print run goes on. And a similar question, if the hat variations are blue registration issues, how consistent would we expect those to be? That is, are registration issues gradual in nature or stepped? Jensens ear on the right below shows a separated red & blue layer for instance and caught my eye. Just curious on the nuts & bolts of actual print process.

This one leans into the research that I have been doing on the process and the printing of the cards themselves. Throw the Jensen on the list of the variations, one that I had never really picked up. Registration issues would be consistent across a a printing run, but would depend on the kind of press that they used (Single color or 4 color lithography). I spoke in depth about the printing process with my Great Uncle (just turned 99, still sharp as a tack). We covered all aspects of his opinions on this set, he worked at a commercial printing company in NYC in the 40's after the war. He said that elements could be taken out of the images on press, so if there was some element that didn't look right, it could be scrubbed from the plate. That said, the plate and the stock never came into direct contact, so in theory, if something was off registration, it would be carried across all the prints in that run. To my eye, it looks like plate variations more than registration issues. The WHY is the big question I am wrestling with now. Why change the blue plate, why remove the details on the hats on tother players, why change the sleeves on the Aberson's. Odd stuff, but fun to check out.

One thing that my Uncle also said, there was no adding elements to the plate, unless you etched a new plate. He said the only time that you would change a plate would be when a plate would wear down, or if they we moved to a different factory, different printer. So this makes cards like Aberson, Ruth, Rizzuto, and Robinson and potentially Jensen interesting variations. I do think the PINK versions were late in the game, and from the conversations I had with my Great Uncle, he thinks that the pink may have more about the ink that was available or what was cheapest to buy at the time.

I have a running theory that the cards were printed at the factory in Chicago where the candy packaging was printed. The stock looks similar to the packaging of WHOPPERS that was produced by Overland Confectionary, a brand that was consolidated and under the Leaf Brands family name in 1947. I have seen images of that stock, and it looks similar. My Uncle did say whoever printed these, were "Not the guys you would want to print a copy of a Van Gogh." I asked him what would lead to this many errors and variations, he laughed and said "they may have been drunk." Which caught me off guard! He said "these guys printing would be the equivalent of "bringing the space shuttle to be serviced at the corner mechanic."

I don't see evidence of yellow on any of them Steve.

This is purely speculation but I wonder if this was just packaging or if there were any cards involved in this fire.

July 1949
Attachment 548800

Here are 2 favorites of mine. Adams and Wyrostek with uniform detail not seen
on examples. The face of Wyrostek is actually focused.

Here's another Adams Mike (not my card).

Attachment 548847

Super interesting! I wonder if this is a factor that prompted another printing?!

Leaf Boxing and BaseBall issues.....
 

A 2nd printing of the 1st Series of 1949 LEAF BB cards was most likely due to the popularity of these cards.

This is exactly what happened with the 1948 -1949 Boxing cards. First issued in the Fall of 1948. Then LEAF
continued printing them till early Spring of 1949. I can personally vouch for this fact, since I acquired these
Boxing cards from Sept 1948 till Feb 1949 (as a young 10-year old kid).


TED Z

T206 Reference
.

The boxing cards must have come out early in your area Ted, they didn't come out until mid December in Brooklyn.

Attachment 548921

Pat

In our neighbor (Hillside, NJ), the Boxing cards were available in late Oct. This I remember very well. During school breaks we were trading these cards.
I was a Tony Zale fan.

Check-out the bio of the Tony Zale card. He lost the Middleweight Fight to Marcel Cerdan on September 21, 1948. This is signifcant because we kids were
really into the Boxing scene. A mile away from our neighborhood (Newark) was an outdoor Boxing arena which featured semi-professional Fights.


http://photos.imageevent.com/tedzan7...ZaleZale25.jpg
1948 issue ................................................. 1949 issue
http://photos.imageevent.com/tedzan7...1949Zale18.jpg



TED Z

T206 Reference
.

Brian, in your research you might also want to consider that some of the variations might have been regional and the cards might have been printed in more than one place. I don't know how many factories Leaf actually had but here's one candy company that they purchased in 1943 that was in operation until they closed that location in 1950.

Washington Ohio 1943

[IMG]https://photos.imageevent.com/patric...ale/img305.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]https://photos.imageevent.com/patric...ale/img307.jpg[/IMG]




1950
[IMG]https://photos.imageevent.com/patric...ale/img303.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]https://photos.imageevent.com/patric...ale/img304.jpg[/IMG]

Pat- these are all great, can I ask where you are getting all of these great clips from?

Old newspapers, I find that they can be helpful in eliminating some of the card versions of the "Mandela effect".

I've seen several opinions why Graziano was short printed by Leaf but I think it would be a heck of a coincidence if it wasn't because he was banned by the NBA right around the time Leaf started printing his boxing cards. He was banned in the end of November 1948.



[IMG]https://photos.imageevent.com/patric...ale/img310.jpg[/IMG]

Mandela Effect indeed. That is why I’m going to the Chicago history museum this spring to look through donations from the Leaf family. I am certain there will not be a silver bullet moment in there, but I hope to fill in some info about the company, that in turn could help fill in the story of Leaf cards and there production.

Brian - did you make it to chicago to review the Leaf family items? Any updates on your findings?

Such a fascinating thread

I did, and further down the rabbit hole I went. I actually spoke with Beckett last week, and a lot of what I found we review on an episode of his podcast. I'll boil it down to the cliff notes version.

**First off, Ted Z is the ultimate resource for all things from this era, his anecdotal information is second to none, a true gentleman of the hobby. Kudos to Steve Birmingham as well, we have a great email thread going spitballing ideas on everything from printing to plate variations. One more, George Vrechek from Sports Collectors Digest, his wrote an article in 2009 which proved to be a "Rosetta Stone" for a couple of things about the set.

The Chicago History Museum had donations from the Marshall Leaf estate, (Marshall) was the son of Sol Leaf, the founder of the company. In the boxes and printed materials, one thing became obvious; Leaf was a candy company, cards were made to get kids to buy candy. Leaf owned several businesses, not just Overland, but also Dietz Gum who both produced cards in the 30's, but they also did non-sport cards with the likes of Disney and Playboy which continued on into the 70's. Within the boxes, there were examples of the Boxing and Football cards, no baseball, but what I learned from all the materials and meeting minutes was that in '47 to '49, Leaf was growing. They were building a new factory on N. Cicero in Chicago and erecting neon billboards on Michigan Ave. I think the cards were a cannonball attempt in the candy market to make a big statement.

When you start digging into the stories from Ted, and put that against the Leaf marketing materials that I saw, along with the injunctions that Bowman brought against Leaf in March and May of '49, the latter aimed at East Coast distributors of the cards, it becomes 99% viable to say that the cards hit the market in '49. The ONLY way that this could be disputed would be to find someone like Ted in the Chicago area that bought the cards in 1948, and to this date I have not been able to find that. When you sprinkle in the info on the backs and the fact that the first run of cards have '49 copyrights sprinkled in with '48's, sales in 1948 would have cards that carry a '49 copyright, which doesn't make sense. As Ted has said, the copyright means that the text was written in '48, and when work resumed on the set in '49, the copyright changed. I also have a theory that there are cards from the sets that could have been produced as "salesman samples". I think the Graziano, alternate Newhouser and perhaps football card that did not change, could have actually been the cards sent out with the salesmen to show off the cards that would be following in 1949. Both of those cards carry the '48 copyright, though the front image of the short print Newhouser is different than the one or two that surface from time to time. This could also explain the blue back Joe Louis.

My short summation is going long, but one thing that I think is an important point to make, and it follows up what I started the thread with, there was a plate change made to this set yielding versions of the cards that are different than the earlier printings. of the variations that are recognized by the industry, Kent Peterson is the exact variation that I am talking about. MOST, not all, but MOST of the changes that were made can be found in the details of the hats. By removing the detail of the black plate, done with a solvent, the hats become brighter. I am working off of the uncut sheet that Ted provided earlier in the thread to illustrate how the cards changed. Another element that myself and Steve have noticed is the addition of color bars to the backgrounds to "close off" the cards in spots, so that the "white" of uniforms don't bleed into the borders. I will attach two images that I worked up that illustrate this, but take a look at your Leafs. you may have a variation and not realize it. The last part which of course will be added to an already hard sell is the "pink" prints, which in my theory were the last of the 'Late Prints" as they carry the missing hat details from the "Late Printing."

The images below show Stan Musial's card that I took into photoshop and left only the Cyan and Black channels on to illustrate how the cap details were removed and what the card looks like. The second image is the top row of the uncut sheet, top line is the first printing, second line is the late printing, third is the pink print.

**PHEW** for those that stayed with me, thank you, this has been an amazing research project and there is so much more to go into, but this brings it up to date...for now. Thanks for the continued interest and collaboration in cracking the code on this set!!

Nicely done! Great research. Thanks for sharing.

Teddy (hey Ted) is always fun to chat with. A wealth of expertise too, as well as the other gentlemen mentioned .

I love uncut strips and sheets but this is all I have, per the subject matter.
It's in a CSG 1.5 holder now.
.

Thanks Leon! It's been a lot of fun, and still more to do. That's a good looking Stan, love all the cards in the set! Tough to chose a favorite!!

That said, Stan is right up there.

Hi Brian, Many years ago I went down the 49’ Leaf and Premiums rabbit hole!
Through my previous video of the premiums, I was contacted by a father and son. The Dad, like Ted Z., remembers and documented his purchasing and opening of packs of 1949 Leaf cards. He kept a journal of it, including receiving the premiums from the store owner, after purchasing the last packs in the box. In my latest premiums video, I share some of his diary. I’ve made arrangements to meet them at the National. Hopefully they’ll allow me to conduct an interview, but definitely will discuss and document the conversation. Here is my latest YouTube video discussing the 49’ leaf set:

https://youtu.be/RygHLVtvmqM

Those premiums are amazing, there are some in your collection I have never seen! Picking up one or two is definitely on my short list to go with my set.

I watched the video all the way through, Ruth died in August of '48, you are correct that the backs refer to the 1948 season, and on Lou Boudreau's card, there is a reference to his MVP award that he got in late November of 1948, and then there are a couple of transactions that kick the can into December which would move production and distribution into an unrealistic time frame.

I'll be interested to hear about your interview, please ask where he grew up, the distribution of the cards is something that I am trying to figure out and it would be great to put another marker in the sand!

Thanks for sharing all the great info!

Those premiums are amazing, there are some in your collection I have never seen! Picking up one or two is definitely on my short list to go with my set.

I watched the video all the way through, Ruth died in August of '48, you are correct that the backs refer to the 1948 season, and on Lou Boudreau's card, there is a reference to his MVP award that he got in late November of 1948, and then there are a couple of transactions that kick the can into December which would move production and distribution into an unrealistic time frame.

I'll be interested to hear about your interview, please ask where he grew up, the distribution of the cards is something that I am trying to figure out and it would be great to put another marker in the sand!

Thanks for sharing all the great info!

Brain has done some great work.

I would correct one thing though.

Printed areas are typically not removed from plates with Solvent, but by drawing over them with a limestone stick.(Stoning off) The changes in these cards are as far as I can tell too consistent and clean for that.

I believe they were done at the mask level, or earlier. Either making new halftones, or redoing the masks to make the changes.
Then making entirely new plates.

This was intentional, but the why is a bit of a mystery to me.
------------------------

Plates wear out, and new ones need to be made if the print runs are big enough. It's possible they hadn't saved the original masks, or that they did very little proofing at all and needed to make changes.


We disagree on the order of the printing, I think the pinks and the related ones with normal colors were first, the others later. We both have fairly convincing explanations though, so I figure it's a coin toss until some kind of proof turns up. (Like if Ted remembers when the pink ones showed up)

There are differences, usually major on all four colors, and rarely what I call a transitional type, where for example the blue that usually goes with a particular yellow is on a card that has a different yellow. Those would give a decent way of telling which came first, but so far I've only seen maybe 2-5.

Some cards the differences are very easy to spot, on others I still haven't found any.

I've been working on a virtual master set for years, and I'm not even halfway done. And haven't even started on boxing and football.

Hey Steve! solvents came up in my discussion with my Great Uncle who operated a press for my Great Grandfather in the late 40's, that's why I put it in there. It feels like a mask to me, but that is in my more modern understanding of things, (as in the computer work I do today). I am going to field a guess that it was a re-do of all plates, allowing the subtractions to be made on the K, and the additions on the C-M-Y. Since you too worked on a press you will know better than I, mostly since I do my masking nowadays with keystrokes and mouse clicks! HA!!

Bottom line, they changed it, and I agree, it is all about the WHY now.

I still think that you might eventually find that the 2 or 3 different variations were printed in different places.

A couple of ads that may not have been posted before.

Spokane Washington May 12 1949
Attachment 579482



Dewey Oklahoma July 15 1949
Attachment 579483

Super interesting, I have never seen those, and didn't think there was much distribution west of the Mississippi. I think, and I am not 100% sure, Leaf packs only had 5 cards per pack with gum, but I could be wrong. Maybe these are ads for Bowman packs? They had an agreement with PCL players, meaning that they could have distributed on the West Coast, but I will have to dig further into it.

Thanks for posting!

5 cards per pack, same name though, but if this ad is from May, it was either left over product, or it was Bowman as the injunction against Leaf by Bowman about the packaging of the cards hit around March 22nd of '49.

A little tough to make out on the image, but does this box have a 1949 copyright date?

Brian

I have to say that Larry Jansen's mustache is less than flattering. His wife should have demanded he shave it off.

I would think the "All Star Bubble Gum' would exclude it from being Bowman especially considering that they had a suit against Leaf.


According to Ted (post #11) in this thread Leaf did come with 6 Baseball cards in a pack.
https://www.net54baseball.com/showth...highlight=Leaf

Bowman boxes look different and don't have the All-Star branding, which is on the back of the 1949 Leaf cards. Bowman's product was just Baseball Bubble Gum.

Not my items, pulled off the web.

Nice pull! Chalk this one up to I have no idea!

Favorite comment of the thread. Double standard for the Leaf set VS T206, everyone clamors for the Titus 'stache, no love for this one!

This seems like a great time to remember when Huggins and Scott sold the Type 1 of the infamous Wagner card for 325 in a small lot because they never noted what it was.

Did anyone here get that deal or is hiding in someone's archives forever?

http://aug14.hugginsandscott.com/cgi...l?itemid=71105

Honus Wagner, the poster child for tobacco……oh wait minute.

Some of the information in this thread brings up a question of how many cards were in a pack were there 5 cards in the first series packs and 6 cards in the second series packs?

The Leaf box posted in this thread clearly says 5 cards per pack several sources say there are 6 cards in the second series packs in the Rosen find (FWIW in a video taped interview Al Rosen at first says there were 6 cards and then changes it to 9 cards in each pack).

Again, not my items, but at least one of the football series and the boxing set had 5 a pack. The wrappers don't say, but the box lids do. I can't find a picture of any of the 5 1948-1949 Leaf sets with a 6 card per pack lid yet.