1948-49 Leaf Jackie Robinson #79

the card

notes

Jackie Robinson played his first game for Brooklyn on 15 April 1947. He was the first Black player in the major leagues in the twentieth century, and he spent that season being spiked, thrown at and abused from the stands under an agreement with Branch Rickey that he would not respond. He was Rookie of the Year, the first man ever to win the award.

Others followed within months. Larry Doby debuted for Cleveland that July, and Hank Thompson, Willard Brown and Dan Bankhead all reached the majors before the 1947 season ended.

By the time Leaf printed this card Robinson had played two seasons. In the one after it he hit .342, led the National League in stolen bases and was named Most Valuable Player.

He finished with a .311 average, 1,518 hits and six All-Star selections, went into the Hall of Fame on the first ballot in 1962, and died in 1972 at 53. In 1997 Major League Baseball retired number 42 across every team in the sport, the only time that has been done.

This set carries landmark early cards of three integration pioneers - Robinson at 79, Doby at 138 and Satchel Paige at 8 - because it was the first colour set printed after the war, and the war had ended just as baseball integrated.

Card 79 is the most recorded card in the set. PSA has seen 1,620 copies, ahead of the Babe Ruth at 1,431, the Ted Williams at 1,287 and the Joe DiMaggio at 1,276. On a checklist containing Ruth, Wagner, DiMaggio and Williams, the card people most want authenticated is the rookie of a man who batted .311.

What they get back is mostly poor. PSA has never recorded a 10. Neither has anyone else - Beckett has graded 165 copies, SGC 767 and CGC 15, with no 10 among them. Seven are 9 and forty are 8, so 2.9 per cent of the graded population reaches 8 or better. A third of it - 542 copies - is a 1 or 2, and another 71 came back Authentic with no numeric grade at all.

That is the set rather than the card. Leaf laid colour over black and white photographs on presses that could not hold registration, and centring drifted, and a card can be untouched since 1949 and still cap at a 4.

The sales are worth reading as a group rather than one at a time. Five unsigned PSA 8s have sold publicly at Heritage: $174,000 in September 2020, $372,000 in August 2021, $468,000 in February 2022, $372,000 in August 2023 and $256,200 in March 2025. Same grade, same card, and a spread of two and a half times between the lowest and the highest.

Two more results sit outside that range and both are instructive. A PSA 9 - one of seven, and described at the time as none higher - sold for $336,000 in November 2018, which is less than three of the PSA 8s that came after it. And in August 2023 a PSA Authentic carrying a PSA/DNA-certified signature sold for $588,000, more than any numerically graded copy has ever made. The autograph was worth more than four grade points.

population

PSA

graded elsewhere

recorded 29 aug 2026. figures are a snapshot on that date, not a live count.

recorded sales

dated past results, not an estimate of what a copy is worth today. figures published by an auction house normally include the buyer's premium, so they are more than the seller received.

where to buy one

This is a six-figure card in almost any collectable grade, and the grade matters less than you would expect.

Five PSA 8s have sold between $174,000 and $256,200 at the low end and $468,000 at the high, and the ordering of those results is chronological rather than by quality. Any single figure quoted for this card describes a month, not a value. If you are transacting, look at the whole run.

Below PSA 8 the card is genuinely obtainable by comparison. PSA 4, 5 and 6 together account for 616 of the 1,620 graded copies and represent the realistic market for most buyers. A PSA 3 is an ordinary example of a card printed this badly.

One thing to allow for when reading auction results: the figures Heritage displays include the buyer's premium, so what the winning bidder paid and what the consignor received are different numbers, and neither matches a private-sale price for the same card.

Buy graded, and verify the certificate number with PSA. On a card at this level, with reprints of this set in circulation, that is not optional.

If a signed example interests you, understand it is a separate market. The 2023 sale at $588,000 was a PSA Authentic with a certified autograph - the card itself carries no numeric grade at all.

what to check before you buy

Do not read misaligned colour as damage. Registration wanders across this whole set and a halo around the figure is original to the printing. It caps the grade and it is not evidence anything happened to the card.

Check centring on both sides. The back is often worse and it counts.

Read the label for a qualifier. 85 graded copies carry one, and on a card where a third of the population sits at 1 or 2, a qualifier at 5 or 6 changes what you are buying.

Check the back for a wrong back. PSA tracks a wrong-back variation at this number, so on card 79 specifically it is a real category rather than something to dismiss.

Verify the certificate number directly with PSA. Reprints of this set exist and the money here justifies the effort.

And check the size before buying pages. These are 2 and 3/8 by 2 and 7/8 inches and will not sit in a standard modern sleeve.

sources