1948-49 Leaf

the set

notes

Ninety-eight cards, numbered from 1 to 168. Sixty-nine numbers in that range were never printed.

Nobody knows why. The two explanations offered are that Leaf skip-numbered deliberately so children would keep buying packs chasing cards that did not exist, and that Bowman had signed away so many players for its own 1948 set that Leaf simply printed around the gaps. Some card backs advertise an album that holds 168 cards, which does nothing to settle it.

The set is not even reliably dated. Some cards carry a 1948 copyright, but the evidence points to release in early 1949, and the Satchel Paige card is the argument: Paige did not pitch in the major leagues until 9 July 1948. Catalogues have called it 1948 Leaf, 1949 Leaf and 1948-49 Leaf, and all three are in use today.

What is not in dispute is what it contains. This was the first post-war set printed in colour, arriving after seven years in which wartime restrictions on ink, cardboard and gum had left the market with almost nothing. And it arrived immediately after baseball integrated, carrying landmark early cards of three of the pioneers of that period: Jackie Robinson at 79, Larry Doby at 138, and Satchel Paige at 8.

Worth being precise about what that does and does not claim. Robinson was first, on 15 April 1947. Doby followed that July, and Hank Thompson, Willard Brown and Dan Bankhead all also debuted during 1947. Paige did not arrive until July 1948. So these are three important early cards, not a complete record of who came first.

Stan Musial, Warren Spahn, Phil Rizzuto, Ralph Kiner, Hal Newhouser, George Kell and Enos Slaughter all have widely recognised mainstream rookie cards in this set. For several of them earlier regional issues exist - Tip Top Bread produced cards in 1947 - so this is the first broadly distributed card rather than the first card of any kind.

Joe DiMaggio is card 1, Babe Ruth is 3, Ted Williams is 76, and Honus Wagner, who had been retired for thirty-one years, is 70.

Then there is the part that makes it one of the hardest sets in the hobby to finish. Forty-nine of the ninety-eight cards are short prints - exactly half - and they are not the stars. Johnny Wyrostek and Eddie Joost are short prints. The set is difficult in the middle, not at the top.

The printing was ambitious and the execution was not. Colour was applied to black and white photographs, the registration wanders, and cards come out of alignment with hazy or doubled images. Centring is chronic. The result is a set that is hard to find in high grade for reasons that have nothing to do with how it was handled.

The cards measure 2 and 3/8 by 2 and 7/8 inches, smaller than the standard that came later, which is why they do not sit properly in modern pages.

One small thing worth knowing before reading the checklist. Leaf used formal given names. Luke Appling is Lucius. Pete Reiser is Harold. Dizzy Trout is Paul. Marty Marion is Martin. Hoot Evers is Walter. They are not errors, they are how the cards read.