Decoding the “why” of 1948/1949 Leaf Sets
 

Update for those interested in my project to unravel the questions and oddities of the 1949 Leaf baseball set, as well as the other issues from 1948. The main focus of my research is trying to explain not only WHY there were so many inconsistencies, but also why more of the variations are not recognized, even though they are. I recently had a conversation with Dr. James Beckett on his podcast. We were able to talk through several things, validating a couple of my thoughts, and of course bringing up some more questions of course.

Another update is that PSA has declined to start recognizing the late print variations that have been discussed on another thread. The cliff notes for those who don’t want to navigate that thread, there were at least 3 series of changes made to printing plate of the non short print 49 card run. The biggest change in the late printing was that the details on the black plate were removed, making the hat colors solid. There is one of these variations accepted by the industry, Kent Peterson, which goes from a black hat to a red hat. This variation runs through all 49 cards in the first series, but the rest of the variations are not recognized though they are obvious once you know what you’re looking for.

This update is focused on where the cards were printed. The low quality control and registration runs rampant through ALL of the Leaf sets. I have long believed that the cards were printed on the same presses that the candy boxes were printed on. The factory on North Cicero was massive, and Sol Leaf was a candy man first, so having it all under one roof makes perfect sense. I was able to pick up a late 40’s Leaf candy box to compare the stock and see if they are indeed the same. I used a ‘48 boxing card from my collection that has no back print. As the pictures below show, they match up. Also, I visited the Chicago History Museum to check out the estate of Marshall Leaf, son of founder and found the photo that I believe shows the printing and assembly floor. I zoomed in to show the full sheets that are tacked up on the presses. I think the cards were printed by the same crew that did the boxes, pushing the process to a 4 color print, which yielded all the registration issues. Printing on site means they could be packaged and sent out with the rest of the candy.

If this is indeed the case, it would explain the low quality across the board, as well as the inconsistent ink colors. Leaf was not a card company, they were candy first, but created a fascinating research project for my father and I!

God post, I've never seen a more authoritative knowledge of the set than our own TedZ.

I've bounced many questions and thoughts off of Ted, and Steve B, there are wonderful resources on this board.

I don't collect the set but I've always been interested in the 48/49 release date, a lot of folks have big money riding on a 48 release date and it's just not true.

The baseball set was definitely distributed in 1949. Between the backs of the cards write ups, to Ted's anecdotal stories, to the lawsuits that ensued from Bowman, they came out in March of 1949. There is no way that I could think of that a Candy company would push a card set in 1948 during the X-Mas selling season, not only would it not make sense, it wouldn't sell. They were a spring issue.

That said, there was work that went on in 1948 on the set, and I have a theory that they produced a small run salesmen's sample set of cards for their candy distributors. In my mind, this would be a solid explanation for not only the Graziano, and blue background Joe Louis in the boxing cards, but it would also explain the Hal Newhouser alternate front, which carries the exact same back information as the short print card that has a 1948 copyright. It certainly doesn't excuse the 1948 date that the industry puts on the set, I don't think that will change any time soon, with as you said a lot of people investing money in the fact that it was a '48 issue.

In addition to this blue Louis I'm not familiar with, there is also an odd red background Al Hostak (white stock) that appeared not long ago. We speculated it might be related to the Graziano on the boxing board. https://www.net54baseball.com/showthread.php?t=333719. This card might prove helpful to your project.

Thanks for sharing this great insight!


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for those who may not have heard these podcasts. Brian did a series of 3 with Dr. Beckett,

This is the link to the 3rd and final episode but there are 2 others as well

https://beckettinsights.podbean.com/...kappel-part-3/

Greg - thanks for this. I just cracked the shell on the boxing set, it's great to get these insights. Below is the picture of the Joe Louis that I missed on eBay, now I wish I would have pursued it a little more aggressively.

What I am realizing is that Leaf's card production was in a constant state of flux. I recently picked up a lot of the 1948 Pirate cards, and according to Ted Z, these hit first. The puzzling thing about the lot is that 10 of the 15 cards in the lot are unnumbered. The spacing on the top line was changed to accommodate the addition of the numbers. My thought here is that they pushed out an initial run, and realized by numbering them (skip numbering in reality) kids would chase the set. So that was changed moving forward. There are only 4 total cards graded by PSA with no number, so the run must have been relatively small. Chalk it up to more variations on the ever changing Leaf sets.

Thanks Rich!

Thank you, I totally missed that Louis. My collection mostly ends at 1912 but I’ve done a couple leaf sets and casually pick up oddities (I was the underbidder on that Fitzsimmons blank back). Love that PSA just slabs it as a normal card lol. That the colored background is shaped and designed to fit around both Louis and Hostak show it is not an ‘error’ and another cards blue layer added or something, but intentionally designed for these cards. I wonder if we will find similar versions of the other white background boxers.

In addition to the purple/red glove differences in some of the cards the Jeffries and Greb cards come in what seem to be to me intentional design changes, with their shirts in white, blue, or with only half of it blue. Just in case that is a helpful change to note for your research. EDIT: So does Lou Ambers, forgot him originally.

That Louis is fantastic. My hunch is sample or prototype. The white stock makes sense since that appears to be the earliest stock used.

There's no shortage of oddities in Leaf. My thinking is that there is probably a full sheet of salesman samples for the Boxing, Football, and Baseball cards. The ones that have serious changes, like background colors or different fronts were corrected in the main run of the cards. If this is the case, the rest of the cards that filled the sheet probably look like the main run of the cards, like a Sid Luckman, which would explain why there is a such a low population on certain cards that don't conform to the rest of the set. Thanks for sharing your insights, this all helps to dial in a solid theory!

1949 LEAF BB cards of all colors.....
 

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


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

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



And then, there is BLUE or no BLUE.
http://photos.imageevent.com/tedzan7...izellplatt.jpg


TED Z

T206 Reference
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I love that Platt card. If ever there was an example of letting the ink run out, there it is!

Here's another interesting Leaf that may be useful. The Great John L is supposed to look like the normal card on left (though not miscut!). This copy on right has him without the blue pants. However, I do not believe this is really an 'ink ran out' situation because the outline of his pants and belt is still in bold blue. If blue ink was out, it shouldn't be outlined instead of filled in in the normal shade and depth of color.

Unlike the Hostak, Louis and Graziano's, this Sullivan is a gray stock card.

I have always been suspicious of the Graziano. The picture quality is so different from every other card in the set.

Going through my archive now for anything else that might be useful to Leaf researchers. This Chalky Wright is not mine. Weird, even for a Leaf. Not sure I've seen another one in any of the sets quite like it. The others errors are also not mine; I only own the white pants Sullivan out of all these.

2 copies of the sheet shown as well, also not mine. The numbering is largely in order vertically down a column.

That's a whole lot of fun. Errors are amazing, just an example of the "anything goes" approach to printing. All of those overprints are flipped, they had the red and blue plates right, then flipped the sheet for the black hit, love it. Chalky Wright is missing his black plate, but looks to be early on in the print run as that red is SATURATED! This is all great materials to have, as I had said before, I am just getting into the boxing, and I had hoped it would have been the easy one, but alas, Leaf Printing is synonymous with lack of Quality Control!

This could be one of the cards that was featured in the salesman sample set. Since the trunks are in blue, it is definitely not the ink running out, rather a plate change to affect the look of the card. It sounds like the card stock backs that up as well.

I attached the Newhouser example for those who haven't seen it, just to illustrate that there are only a couple of cards that fall outside the 7x7=49 cards per sheet runs. This would be the equivalent of a Graziano to me, as the image totally changed from sample to production, probably because you couldn't tell who it was!

And here's all of the Graziano's that have publicly available images (as far as I have found). This is the marque card in the boxing hobby, but I am rather suspicious of it. It does not look like the other cards; a much more detailed and colorful picture of him than any other subject. It looks like one of those homemade cards where a different picture type is laid onto a Leaf design. I'm not saying it's a later creation or fake or not period, but I doubt it was just a normal card quickly pulled from the sheet over legal issues. It really doesn't look right.

Perhaps I shouldn't question it; the Graziano being the hyper marquee card in the hobby leaves the other great short prints cheaper for me :)

The 1 of a kind Newhouser is, in my eyes, as cool as post-war cards get. There's a few Rocky's out there, but only one of this card.

I bet “mom” threw out one or two of them.

1949 LEAF cards
 

Here's my normally green Billy Johnson with a yellow background.

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

And then, my "psychedelic-looking" Billy Johnson :)


https://photos.imageevent.com/tedzan...ljohnson_1.jpg
TED Z

T206 Reference
.