Basic Differences of 1948 vs 1949 LEAF Sports Sets

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Posted By: Ted Zanidakis

Sorry guys, about "beating this subject to death". Anyhow, just
some final clarifications. The 1948 LEAF Boxing Champs set of
49 cards was issued by the summer of '48. It includes Champions
like Joe Louis, Jack Dempsey, Sugar Ray Robinson, Jake LaMotta,
John L. Sullivan, and a very rare Rocky Graziano card. Now the
early printing runs of this set used WHITE cardboard stock.

Subsequently, in the fall of '48 LEAF issued a 98 card Football
set. It was printed on WHITE cardboard stock. These cards were
straightforwardly numbered (#1 - 98). While the above mentioned
Boxing set was skip-numbered (#1 - 102).

Now both these sets also exist printed on GRAY cardboard stock.

LEAF Gum Co early in 1949 switched to using the GRAY stock for
all their following sportscard sets. Why LEAF did this is at
this point is unknown, and unfortunate. As any collectors of
the '48 sets will consistently tell you that the fronts
of the WHITE cardboard cards are distinctly sharper than the GRAY ones.

Of course we know that the 1949 BaseBall set (98 cards, skip-
numbered #1 - 168) was printed only using GRAY stock. And, in
the Fall of 1949, LEAF issued a 98 card Football set, skip-numbered (#1 -150) which was printed only on GRAY stock.

So, the reason for the two aforementioned 1948 sets existing in
WHITE and GRAY cardboard, to my understanding,is that as LEAF's
markets had expanded and became national issues; they had to
print more cards for these two 1948 sets to fill the increasing
demand. This they did in early 1949 using then the available
GRAY cardboard stock.