Are 1948 Leaf's Considered Vintage?

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Posted By: Gilbert Maines

Who am I to speak for the general understanding of baseball card collectors? But who is anybody to do that? So, here goes nothing.

I believe that the general perception is that vintage includes cards issued sometime before 1980. Old vintage cards can go back into the '50s.

These cards are actively collected and many command high prices, as evidenced by most auctions.

Cards earlier than the fifties portray players that few know much about. There are several individual superstars who are recognizable to most fans but subtelties such as the difference between Tris Speaker and Hank Greenberg are less clear to most.

Players from the pre-WWI period with very few exceptions are essentially unknown to most collectors.

Because of this lack of awareness, pre-war collectors enjoy the ability to purchase cards at prices well below our perception of their value. However, all cards are priced nominally in accordance with their availability and demand.

So what do we conclude? Everything is of some vintage. Recently issued cards are of recent vintage, Older cards are of older vintage, etc. This Forum focuses our attention on cards of pre-war vintage, while some of us specialize in cards of pre-WWI, or 19th century vintage.

If subsequent generations of collectors are not aware of pre-war players, then interest in these cards will drop, along with prices. So: thank you Topps for your retro, reprint and buyback activities. And thanks to Fritsch, Dover and all the others who spread the awareness with their reprints. We just have to be smart enough to not be fooled into thinking new is vintage.