Hobby history: Tracking down 1949 Leaf baseball

[jsq]

awesome reporting. your work on the leaf sets is really informative.

rich egan who you quote was a nice guy, very knowledgable, and helpful to the hobby.

thanks for your efforts.

[sandmountainslim]

Very very interesting! Thank you for this research. Interesting set which I own no examples of but to me it looks much better than any Goudey or Play Ball release. I will have to pick up a nine page worth in the near future.

[62corvette]

Would any of you have an estimate as to how many complete Leaf sets are in existence?

[trdcrdkid]

Thanks for the feedback, everybody. It's gratifying when historical research I do purely for fun helps out other people in their research. There's a ton of information in those old hobby publications, and now that I have pretty much everything from the mid-50s to 1990 (and quite a bit from before and after those dates) it's easier to trace things like this.

Speaking of Leaf, I'd like to figure out when the black and white set now known as 1960 Leaf became know as such in the hobby, because all the articles about it in the hobby literature at the time called it the "Sports Novelties" set, using the name that was actually on the cards.

Also, does anybody out there happen to know if Rich Egan is still around? He would be in his 70s now.

[Leon]

I learned a few things I didn't know. A good day. As for your questions, sorry but I don't know. And I would think Egan could even be in his 80s if he is still with us. That said, I don't know when he was born. The quest continues. Thanks for posting.

Originally Posted by trdcrdkid

Thanks for the feedback, everybody. It's gratifying when historical research I do purely for fun helps out other people in their research. There's a ton of information in those old hobby publications, and now that I have pretty much everything from the mid-50s to 1990 (and quite a bit from before and after those dates) it's easier to trace things like this.

Speaking of Leaf, I'd like to figure out when the black and white set now known as 1960 Leaf became know as such in the hobby, because all the articles about it in the hobby literature at the time called it the "Sports Novelties" set, using the name that was actually on the cards.

Also, does anybody out there happen to know if Rich Egan is still around? He would be in his 70s now.

[trdcrdkid]

Originally Posted by Leon

I learned a few things I didn't know. A good day. As for your questions, sorry but I don't know. And I would think Egan could even be in his 80s if he is still with us. That said, I don't know when he was born. The quest continues. Thanks for posting.

This article on Rich Egan from the December 13, 1973 Chicago Tribune (as reprinted in the March 1974 issue of The Collector Talks) says that he was 32 years old at the time, which would mean he was born in 1941. That also means he was 24 when he started writing "Egan's Alley".



Also, here are all the cards in the 1949 Leaf set, from Ted Z's article in the Fall 2006 Old Cardboard. "SP" indicates the short prints. I hope Brett and Lyman don't mind my posting these scans of the pages.

[hangman62]

that's just incredible info !