1948-49 Leaf Baseball Cards

Product Details

Led by rookie cards for Jackie Robinson, Satchel Paige and many other Hall of Fame players, 1948-49 Leaf Baseball is a noteworthy vintage release.

The loaded checklist is further enhanced by short prints that occupy almost half the set.

1948-49 Leaf Baseball Set Details

1948-49 Leaf Baseball is significant because it was the first post-World War II set to feature color pictures on them. Virtually no sets were produced in the years previous due to wartime restrictions on ink, cardboard and many supplies needed to make gum. As a result, the set features several key Hall of Fame rookie cards.

Measuring 2-3/8" by 2-7/8", the set's design is relatively basic. Each card front features a player against a vividly colored background that is either solid or two-tone. The player's name appears below a picture in a solid-colored box. 1948-49 Leaf Baseball card backs have the player's biographical info and a brief write-up, which was pretty standard for gum cards before Topps came along. As was customary for the era, an ad for All-Star Baseball Gum appears at the bottom, along with an offer for one of three wrapper redemption premiums.

While rookie cards fill a huge percentage of the set, key veterans include Babe Ruth, Joe DiMaggio and Ted Williams. One of the more interesting cards in 1948-49 Leaf Baseball is that of Honus Wagner (#70), who, at the time, was a coach for the Pirates. On the card, he's shown stuffing chewing tobacco into his mouth, an interesting revelation for hobbyists who thought his famed T206 card was withdrawn due to an anti-tobacco stance.

Hobbyists have long argued specifics about 1948-49 Leaf Baseball . Since the cards contain both 1948 and 1949 copyright dates on them, they can be seen as a two-year issue. Some collectors, however, contend that they are a 1949 issue since nearly all have info about the 1948 season on them. What is certain is that the cards have long been debated in the hobby. As late as 1960, collectors were still trying to figure out how many cards the set contained.

Eventually, after much internal hobby debate, it was determined that 98 cards complete the basic 1948-49 Leaf Baseball set. A few factors made things less clear for collectors. First, the cards are skip-numbered from 1-168. Secondly, a premium offer found on some of the card backs references an album that would hold 168 cards. Finally, exactly half of the cards were severely short-printed, to the point that it is incredibly difficult to piece the set together without a lot of patience, time and money.

It's not known why 1948-49 Leaf Baseball was skip-numbered, but it has been speculated that Leaf was hoping to get kids to keep spending their pennies and nickels on cards that weren't in existence. It's also possible that future series were planned but scrapped when Bowman came along and signed players to exclusive contracts.

In addition, a handful of acknowledged variations bring the master set size up to 101 total cards. Gene Hermanski can be found with and without the last 'i' in his name. Cliff Aberson has two different sleeve lengths. Finally, Kent Peterson has him wearing either a red cap or a dark one. Since the 1948-49 Leaf Baseball cards themselves were crudely colored, they are often found with coloring variations and registration issues.