Originally Posted by yanks87 (Post 2354234)

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!!

Originally Posted by Leon (Post 2354757)

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.
.

Originally Posted by Rare Stuff (Post 2354821)

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

Originally Posted by Rare Stuff (Post 2354821)

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

Originally Posted by steve B (Post 2354946)

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.

Originally Posted by Pat R (Post 2355018)

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.

Originally Posted by yanks87 (Post 2355440)

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!

Originally Posted by yanks87 (Post 2355440)

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!

Originally Posted by G1911 (Post 2355568)

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.

Originally Posted by Yoda (Post 2355445)

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

Originally Posted by JustinD (Post 2355650)

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

Originally Posted by Pat R (Post 2355883)

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).

Originally Posted by Rare Stuff (Post 2361310)

Proof of the Leaf being a 1949 issue. Check out my interview, he opened packs in 1949. Written in his diary, cards shown and premiums are pack fresh.
https://youtu.be/GJWWsd4VZQw

Originally Posted by ullmandds (Post 2361316)

very cool

Originally Posted by yanks87 (Post 2288383)

Speaking of the uncut sheet, if it is real, it confirms the wholesale changes that were made to update the cards. The only one that is a little bit of a head scratcher is the population of the Aberson sleeve variations.

In the image, it shows the 3 "accepted" variations:
Aberson - Short Sleeve PSA/SGC Pop: 95/29 - 124 total
Peterson - Dark Cap PSA/SGC Pop: 144/16 - 160 total
Hermanski* - Full Name PSA/SGC Pop: 231/97 - 328 total

The Variation populations on these:
Aberson - Long Sleeve PSA/SGC Pop: 154/24 - 178 total
Peterson - Red Cap PSA/SGC Pop: 86/24 - 110 total
Hermansk* - Missing I PSA/SGC Pop: 97/4 - 101 total

In theory the total number of Aberson short sleeve cards should be higher than the long sleeve, but from the looks of it, older grades did not delineate between the two versions for both grading houses. I put the * on Hermanski as it really falls into the category of "inking error" to me. If the numbers tell the story, there is a slightly smaller population of the second printing, but if you search the bigger cards, the variations seem to be much more rare than 30%. On a quick visual search of Heritage past sales, 156 Jackie Robinson's sold (not accounting for doubles) only 17 are from the second printing (no hat detail, color bar connecting background to name plate). That to me shows rarity in variation.

The research continues.

Originally Posted by jaisonline (Post 2387805)

Just picked up my first Leaf Jackie Robinson after researching over a year. Looked at many past auctions. I also saw the 2nd plate version (no cap detail / color bright blue) far less than the 1st

Originally Posted by ngrow9 (Post 2428685)

Bumping this thread as I am in the process of reviewing the original court documents from the Bowman v. Leaf lawsuit filed in 1949 in Chicago. Leaf's filings in the case shed definitive light on some of the questions raised here.

For instance, the company conclusively states in court filings that its baseball product was first released to the public in March 1949. So the cards were not released in 1948 despite copyright dates to the contrary. Moreover, they were first released in Boston, and by May had reached roughly 80% of the 48 states. So this was a national, not regional, release.

Leaf released its first football set in fall of 1948. It used the same wrappers for its initial run of 1949 baseball cards. So the "All Star Pictures" wrapper Ted Z. posted earlier in the thread is the original baseball wrapper. The company specifically noted it used the same wrapper for both football and baseball cards in its March 1949 case filing. The wrapper with the "All Star Baseball" wording must have come later. While the wording of the wrappers do not appear to have been directly at issue in the litigation, Bowman did contest the similar manner in which Leaf generally marketed its product (both sold packs of 5 cards and 3 sticks of gum for 5 cents each).

Leaf released its Knock Out boxing set in early 1949, followed shortly after by a basketball set.

Leaf originally publicized its intent to release a 300 card baseball set in 1949.

Bowman eventually filed a second case in Philadelphia after failing to secure an injunction stopping Leaf from distributing its product in the Chicago case. This is the court order some have referenced here. Leaf was actually not a party to that case, it was filed only against Philadelphia area distributors and sellers of the Leaf product. So reports that Leaf cards have been disproportionately found in the Midwest likely suggest that east coast distribution was curtailed by the second lawsuit. But cards were distributed on the east coast initially.

Leaf and Bowman continued to litigate in Chicago through 1949, eventually culminating in the aforementioned settlement agreement in March 1950, under which Leaf agreed to leave the field through at least 1951.

I'm reviewing these materials as research for a book on the legal history of the baseball card industry, one that will hopefully be of interest to many here.

Originally Posted by G1911 (Post 2428687)

Well, sign me up to order a copy of this book once its available :)

The boxing set has long been said to have been released twice, once in 1948 and once in 1949 (reflecting the two backs), but the source for this claim seems to be memories rather than evidentiary material.

Originally Posted by ngrow9 (Post 2428694)

Thanks! The book is still probably at least a couple years away, but I'll be sure to post about it when it's available.

The 1949 boxing release date came from Leaf's answer filed in court in March 1949, signed under oath by Marshall Leaf himself. So I would place a pretty high degree of confidence on that, although I guess it's always possible he was mistaken if the product actually came out in late December 48.

Originally Posted by G1911 (Post 2428697)

In general, we really need more document based research; there's a ton of hobby myths that just are accepted as true because that's what X authority or Y authority said.

In my similar projects for pre-war boxing cards, I have found that what is said is usually not supported by documents from the period when they surface and something else is actually true. I have a lot more faith in primary source evidence than what people say at great remove from the events - I am not arguing against your finding here at all, just pointing out that it does not align with the longstanding hobby story about the boxing set. That's precisely why I love genuine primary source research being shared - it points to the truth instead.

Originally Posted by ngrow9 (Post 2428694)

Thanks! The book is still probably at least a couple years away, but I'll be sure to post about it when it's available.

The 1949 boxing release date came from Leaf's answer filed in court in March 1949, signed under oath by Marshall Leaf himself. So I would place a pretty high degree of confidence on that, although I guess it's always possible he was mistaken if the product actually came out in late December 48.

Originally Posted by ngrow9 (Post 2428685)

Bumping this thread as I am in the process of reviewing the original court documents from the Bowman v. Leaf lawsuit filed in 1949 in Chicago. Leaf's filings in the case shed definitive light on some of the questions raised here.

For instance, the company conclusively states in court filings that its baseball product was first released to the public in March 1949. So the cards were not released in 1948 despite copyright dates to the contrary. Moreover, they were first released in Boston, and by May had reached roughly 80% of the 48 states. So this was a national, not regional, release.

Leaf released its first football set in fall of 1948. It used the same wrappers for its initial run of 1949 baseball cards. So the "All Star Pictures" wrapper Ted Z. posted earlier in the thread is the original baseball wrapper. The company specifically noted it used the same wrapper for both football and baseball cards in its March 1949 case filing. The wrapper with the "All Star Baseball" wording must have come later. While the wording of the wrappers do not appear to have been directly at issue in the litigation, Bowman did contest the similar manner in which Leaf generally marketed its product (both sold packs of 5 cards and 3 sticks of gum for 5 cents each).

Leaf released its Knock Out boxing set in early 1949, followed shortly after by a basketball set.

Leaf originally publicized its intent to release a 300 card baseball set in 1949.

Bowman eventually filed a second case in Philadelphia after failing to secure an injunction stopping Leaf from distributing its product in the Chicago case. This is the court order some have referenced here. Leaf was actually not a party to that case, it was filed only against Philadelphia area distributors and sellers of the Leaf product. So reports that Leaf cards have been disproportionately found in the Midwest likely suggest that east coast distribution was curtailed by the second lawsuit. But cards were distributed on the east coast initially.

Leaf and Bowman continued to litigate in Chicago through 1949, eventually culminating in the aforementioned settlement agreement in March 1950, under which Leaf agreed to leave the field through at least 1951.

I'm reviewing these materials as research for a book on the legal history of the baseball card industry, one that will hopefully be of interest to many here.

Originally Posted by Pat R (Post 2428715)

In an earlier post in this thread I posted a newspaper clipping from the Brooklyn Daily Eagle showing that the boxing cards came out in that area in mid December 1948 here it is again.

[IMG]https://photos.imageevent.com/patric...bble%20Gum.jpg[/IMG]

Originally Posted by yanks87 (Post 2428737)

Where were you able to find the court filings/litigation records? I am wrapping up a book specifically on Leaf and I wasn't able to find documentation on the Bowman suit? Most of the things that I found alluded to the fact that it was settled out of court.

It's interesting that Marshall was involved at all, being that he had just come back from the war, and Sol and Harry were still very much in charge of the company. If you are comfortable sharing any of your findings around the suit, I definitely would love to update that chapter to be accurate.

What I found to be the release order of the cards put Pirates first, Unnumbered, then Numbered (TedZ corroborated this), then Boxing as cited in the article, followed by the 1948 Football Issue, a March release of the Baseball cards carrying '48 and '49 copyrights, and then the 1949 issue of football and the smaller short print issue which was limited in it's distribution after the May injunction shutting down east coast distribution.

Any info you have, I would love to check out! Thanks for chiming in!

Originally Posted by yanks87 (Post 2428737)

Where were you able to find the court filings/litigation records? I am wrapping up a book specifically on Leaf and I wasn't able to find documentation on the Bowman suit? Most of the things that I found alluded to the fact that it was settled out of court.

It's interesting that Marshall was involved at all, being that he had just come back from the war, and Sol and Harry were still very much in charge of the company. If you are comfortable sharing any of your findings around the suit, I definitely would love to update that chapter to be accurate.

What I found to be the release order of the cards put Pirates first, Unnumbered, then Numbered (TedZ corroborated this), then Boxing as cited in the article, followed by the 1948 Football Issue, a March release of the Baseball cards carrying '48 and '49 copyrights, and then the 1949 issue of football and the smaller short print issue which was limited in it's distribution after the May injunction shutting down east coast distribution.

Any info you have, I would love to check out! Thanks for chiming in!

Originally Posted by G1911 (Post 2428687)

Well, sign me up to order a copy of this book once its available :)

Originally Posted by steve B (Post 2428789)

The mention of a basketball set is interesting.
Maybe planned but never released because of the cost of the lawsuit or them getting out entirely.

I wonder if the copyright office would have anything on a planned but never released set?

Originally Posted by yanks87 (Post 2428858)

I think the collecting community may need to give Nathaniel a HUGE pat on the back for uncovering definitive proof on the distribution of Leaf cards (listed in the complaint as March of 1949) as well as the outline of the settlement.

WELL DONE. This is the start of debunking some of the myths around this set, and checking the boxes of verifiable data.

I am STOKED.

Originally Posted by yanks87 (Post 2435071)

I wanted to take a minute and wrap up a couple things on this thread that I started 2 years ago.

Before I dive too far in, I do want to say thank you to all the folks who chimed in and collaborated with me on my research. It helped me finish up my reference book (re: LEAF - available on Amazon.com) as well as put to bed many of the myths around this iconic set. Specifically Nathaniel Grow for the last minute Hail Mary of a research Rosetta Stone, Steve Birmingham for his color insights and process thoughts, and of course the Legendary TedZ, as Han Solo said in The Force Awakens, "It's true, all of it." Thanks Ted for letting me pick your brain, and hopefully this will all get a heavenly thumbs up!

* 1949 Leaf Baseball Cards came out in early March of 1949, with the first truck leaving for Boston on or around March 12, 1949. Placing the Leaf cards in market before Bowman, but still very much in 1949.

* Leaf cards, all of them, were printed in house and there was at least 3 printings which yielded variations to the early printing. Kent Peterson is an example of this change, but it extends to more than 80% of the "Non-Short Print" 49 card series.

* There is a difference between printing plate variations and color variations. Leaf was printing on a press used for printing their candy packaging, since standardized ink colors didn't emerge until the late 1950's, the color variations are tied to the inks, not to the plates. Plate changes yield trackable differences in the cards that are not printing issues/errors.

* The agreement between Leaf and Bowman ensured Leaf would not produce cards until 1951, the next time they pushed out cards was 1960, and they were packaged with marbles, in order to avoid legal attention from Topps.

I go much deeper in the book, as well as side by side images of the variations, but I thought it would be good to go on the record as it were to tie off some of the loose ends. It is a fascinating set, and it has been an amazing research journey!

Originally Posted by JollyElm (Post 2436166)

That's a cool play on the title!!! Well done!!!

Good luck!!!