More Unlisted Errors: 1948 and 1949 Leaf Bob Hendren

September 13th, 2012  |  Published in error cards

Error card collectors, here are two more error cards that are not marked in my Beckett catalog: Bob Hendren’s 1948 and 1949 Leaf cards have his name spelled “Hendreen.” Hendren’s name is also misspelled on the back of his 1948 card, but Leaf corrected the spelling on the back in 1949.

Tip of the day: when you search eBay for a card with a misspelled name, search for both the correct and incorrect spellings. Some sellers use the correct spelling of the player’s name, and some use the name on the card.

For more information on the 1948 and 1949 Leaf sets, see L is for Leaf. To see all of the error cards in a certain set, use the Advanced Search page of the Vintage Football Card Gallery.
1948 Leaf Bob Hendren football card1949 Leaf Bob Hendren football card

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New in the Gallery: Virtual Uncut Sheets of 1948 and 1949 Leaf Football Cards

April 30th, 2011  |  Published in New in the Gallery

This week I added virtual uncut sheets of 1948 Leaf and 1949 Leaf football cards to the Vintage Football Card Gallery. From a picture of a 1949 sheet, I think I have also figured out what the 1948 sheets looked like. The 1949 Leaf set is basically a subset of the 1948 Leaf set with the card backs and card numbers changed, and it appears to me that the sheets would have been similar. Take a peek, and let me know what you think.
Virtual uncut sheet of 1948 Leaf football cards

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New in the Gallery: 1949 Leaf Football Cards

April 25th, 2011  |  Published in New in the Gallery

Chuck Bednarik 1949 Leaf football cardOver the weekend I added 1949 Leaf football cards to the Vintage Football Card Gallery. It is quite an unexciting set: the fronts of 1949 Leaf cards are identical to the fronts of 1948 Leaf cards, and there are no new players–and hence, no rookie cards–in the 1949 set. The 1949 set is also just half the size of the 1948 set: 49 cards versus 98. Whereas the 1948 Leaf set contains both NFL and college players, the 1949 set contains just NFL players.

Leaf changed the backs of the cards in 1949, so it actually is easy to tell the two years apart. My earlier article, L is for Leaf, includes pictures of the backs of both 1948 and 1949 cards. Leaf also changed the card numbers in 1949. The 1949 Leaf set is skip-numbered, with numbers scattered between 1 and 150, presumably to fool kids into thinking there were more cards available to buy.

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L is for Leaf

October 23rd, 2009  |  Published in ABCs of Vintage Football Cards, Football Card Oddities, Football Card Trivia

The Leaf Gum Company printed football cards in 1948 and 1949. The cards from the two years are very similar. In fact, except for the variations in the 1948 cards, for players who appear in both sets, the fronts of the cards appear identical. The backs are different for the two years, fortunately, and the copyright date on the bottom of the back tells which year a card is from. Shown here are Leaf’s two Herb Seigert cards, the first from 1948, and the second from 1949.
1948 Leaf Herb Siegert football card1949 Leaf Herb Siegert football card
The images on the Leaf cards started as black and white photos, and then someone colored the images’ backgrounds and the players’ uniforms. On some cards, such as the Harry Szulborski card below, the coloring makes it look as if the player’s head was cut out and pasted on a colored background.

1948 Leaf Harry Szulborski football cardMy favorite feature of the Leaf cards is that many have both the player’s first name and nickname on the front: ‘Slingin’ Sammy Baugh, ‘Bullet’ Bill Dudley, Charlie ‘Choo Choo’ Justice, and so on. A quick bit of trivia: which player’s nickname is in double quotes? Answer: Clyde “Bulldog” Turner‘s.

The 1948 Leaf set consists of 98 cards, with cards 1-49 being easier to find and cards 50-98 being difficult. The set features both pro and college players, with slightly more than half of the cards being pros. The bigger stars of the day–mostly pros–are concentrated in the first half of the set, and most of the college players are in the second half.

1948 Leaf Pete Pihos rookie card with yellow numbersThe set contains many variations: mostly in the colors used, but in the players’ names as well. The 1948 Leaf set composition page on PSA’s web site lists most of the variations, but I don’t believe it is complete. It lists two variations of the Pete Pihos rookie card, for example, one with yellow numbers and one with blue. I have also seen a variation with greenish numbers, though. It is pictured here with the yellow-numbered version for contrast.

Because there had been no major football card issues since 1935 National Chicle, all of the 1948 Leaf football cards are rookie cards. Fourteen of the players in the set are of Hall of Famers, making it a key set for Hall of Fame rookie card collectors. Fortunately for those collectors, only two of the Hall of Fame players–namely Leo Nomellini and Chuck Bednarik–are in the tougher second half of the set. (Nomellini and Bednarik were both still in college at the time.) An article by Kevin Glew on the Collectors Universe web site lists the Hall of Famers and describes the other challenges facing 1948 Leaf collectors.

Compared to the 1948 Leaf set, the 1949 Leafs are not very interesting. The 1949 set contains only 49 cards, all pro players, and there are no new players in the set. Also, as I wrote above, there is no perceptible difference in the card fronts for players who appear in both sets. So Leaf’s 1949 offer was essentially half of 1948’s cards, but with different backs.

One odd thing about the 1949 set is that it is skip-numbered, with the numbers of its 49 cards scattered between 1 and 150. When I first learned this, I wondered if Leaf had intended to release more cards to fill in the gaps. It turns out, though, that they also skip-numbered their 1949 baseball set. That suggests to me that they were trying to trick kids into buying more cards, even if they already had the whole set. I’d call that just plain mean. It’s not surprising that this was Leaf’s last football set.

You can see all of the 1948 Leaf and 1949 Leaf cards in the Vintage Football Card Gallery.

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