Decoding the “why” of 1948/1949 Leaf Sets

[G1911]

Originally Posted by yanks87

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.